Great news from Venice today. Ahead of the aforementioned premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, “The Laundromat” will also be screened (assumingly its world-premiere) at the 76th Venice Film Festival. With the announcement, a first synopsis for the film has been released which indicates that a) Streep is playing the central character of the film and b) announces James Cromwell and Sharon Stone as co-stars. As The Hollywood Reporter writes, “Netflix will have a solid lineup once again in Venice this year after scoring big last year when Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma took home the Golden Lion and the Coen Bros.’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs won the Best Screenplay award. Also from Netflix, Steven Soderbergh’s uber-timely Panama Papers comedy The Laundromat follows Meryl Streep as Ellen Martin, whose dream vacation takes a wrong turn and leads her down a rabbit hole of shady dealings that can all be traced to one Panama City law firm, run by seductive partners played by Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas. She soon learns that her minor predicament is only a drop in the bucket millions of files linking an off-shore tax scheme to the world’s richest and most powerful political leaders. The all-star cast also includes Jeffrey Wright, David Schwimmer, Larry Wilmore, Matthias Schoenaerts, James Cromwell and Sharon Stone”. After facing backlash for an almost all-male lineup in recent years, the good news is that Venice has doubled the number of female directors in competition. The bad news is that wasn’t too hard to do, going from one director to two out of 21 competition films. The 76th Venice Film Festival runs August 28 – September 07, 2019.
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