Venice Film Festival 2026 announces opening and closing films: Danny Boyle’s Ink and Giovanni Veronesi’s Dio ride

The 83rd Venice International Film Festival, directed by Alberto Barbera, has revealed the films that will open and close its 2026 edition.

Danny Boyle‘s Ink will launch the festival on Wednesday, 2 September. The film will screen in Competition at the Sala Grande on the Venice Lido.

The festival will end on Saturday, 12 September, with the world premiere of Giovanni Veronesi‘s Dio ride. The historical drama will screen Out of Competition immediately after the awards ceremony.

The two films tell very different stories. Yet both explore how ideas shape society. Boyle examines the rise of modern mass media. Veronesi examines the relationship among faith, power, and individual freedom.

Danny Boyle opens Venice with Ink

Danny Boyle returns with Ink, his first film selected for the official programme of the Venice Film Festival.

Screenwriter James Graham adapted the screenplay from his Tony Award-nominated stage play. Boyle sets the story in 1969, when Rupert Murdoch acquired The Sun and appointed Larry Lamb as editor.

The film follows their partnership as they reshape British journalism. Their editorial strategy turns The Sun into the country’s best-selling tabloid and changes the relationship between newspapers, politics and public opinion.

Jack O’Connell plays Larry Lamb. Guy Pearce stars as Rupert Murdoch, while Claire Foy plays Jules Davies.

Boyle welcomed the invitation to Venice and called it “an immense honour.”

“1969 is remembered as the year we first landed on the Moon,” he said. “It is also the year Rupert Murdoch and Larry Lamb launched a newspaper that changed the world in another way.”

Alberto Barbera praised the project for bringing together Boyle, Graham and “three of the most highly regarded actors in contemporary British cinema.”

STUDIOCANAL, MEDIA RES and House Productions produce Ink. Lucky Red will distribute the film in Italy.

Giovanni Veronesi closes the festival with Dio ride

Giovanni Veronesi will close this year‘s Venice Film Festival with Dio ride. The film will receive its world premiere on 12 September at the Sala Grande.

Veronesi freely draws on real events and sets the story in seventeenth-century Italy. The protagonist is Fra Leopoldo da Casamacchia, a friar who speaks about God with joy and simplicity. His sermons attract thousands of followers and spread quickly across the countryside.

While the Church continues to preach in Latin, Leopoldo speaks directly to ordinary people. He offers hope instead of fear and presents a God who laughs alongside humanity.

His growing popularity soon reaches Rome. Pope Innocent X asks Cardinal Maculani, one of the Church’s leading inquisitors, to investigate. What begins as a trial soon becomes a debate about faith, truth and authority.

The cast includes Pierfrancesco Favino, Silvio Orlando, Alma Noce, Francesco Gheghi, Maurizio Lombardi, Paolo Rossi and Carlo Cecchi, who plays Pope Innocent X.

Veronesi admitted that the invitation came as a surprise. “I usually struggle to express my emotions. This invitation to the Venice Film Festival surprised and honoured me. I’m happy. There, I’ve said it.”

Barbera believes the film captures the best tradition of Italian cinema. “We will close the festival on a high note thanks to Giovanni Veronesi and his outstanding cast. They combine irony and lightness with a subject that usually receives a much more solemn treatment.”

Veronesi wrote the screenplay with Nicola Baldoni, Gianluca Bernardini and Nicola Deorsola. Paolo Portone and Jean Jacques Ilunga collaborated on the script.

Indiana Production, a VUELTA company, produces the film in collaboration with Netflix, PiperFilm and Ogi Film.

PiperFilm will release Dio ride in Italian cinemas on 29 October. PiperPlay handles international sales.

Two films that reflect on power and influence

The Venice Film Festival has chosen two films that speak to each other despite their different settings.

Ink explores a decisive moment in the history of modern journalism. It shows how newspapers shaped public opinion during a period of profound social change.

Dio ride moves back three centuries. It follows a man whose message of compassion challenges religious and political authority.

One story centres on the media. The other focuses on faith. Both ask the same question: who has the power to shape public thought?

Together, the two films frame the 2026 Venice Film Festival with stories about influence, belief and the forces that continue to define contemporary society.