VENICE: Director Noah Baumbach already has ten feature films to his credit so it is no surprise that this already accomplished and respected filmmaker has landed in the Venice competition with his latest offering Marriage Story. What is surprising is that this just might be his best film yet.

VENICE: American indie filmmaker James Gray is not the first name that springs to mind when you think of a Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster, but Ad Astra, which boasts Hollywood mega-star Brad Pitt in the leading role, is an accomplished film with enough artistic backbone to score a slot in the main competition in Venice.

VENICE: Director Todd Phillips enters the Venice competition lineup with what just might be the first Batman film that is for non-Batman fans. His film Joker takes the usual Hollywood comic book franchise into much deeper and more interesting psychological territory than the usual special effects laden star vehicles. while still managing to deliver all the expected Gotham City sets and characters in full regalia. Set in a thinly disguised New York City of either the late 1970s or the not distant future, when the city is overwhelmed with crime, greed, filth and society’s breakdown, we see the origins of the famous characters of the later films.

VENICE: Director Steven Soderbergh’s film The Laundromat, which screens in the main competition in Venice, is based on the book Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite by Jake Bernstein. The book and a series of exposes articles in 2015 came into being when documents that became known as the Panama Papers were leaked to journalists by someone inside the Panamanian law firm of Mossack Fonseca, one of the world’s largest providers of offshore corporate services. The documents revealed information about more than 200,000 offshore companies and set off an avalanche of scandal and money laundering investigations around the world, although no one is assuming that anything has changed in this system that aides the super-rich in hiding their money from tax-authorities and government officials.