Clooney Gets Golden Lion as Venice Opens With Murdoch's 'Ink'

The Venice Film Festival opened with Danny Boyle's 'Ink,' a lifetime-achievement Golden Lion for George Clooney, and a tense gender debate.

AP News reports the festival runs through Sept. 12, with stars from Robert Pattinson to Oasis's Noel and Liam Gallagher expected on the red carpet over 11 days. Ellen Burstyn, 93, is also set to receive a Golden Lion later in the festival, according to AP.

Before the ceremony, AP News reports, the 65-year-old actor addressed artificial intelligence in Hollywood, the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, and the state of journalism, joking he would "like to avoid being in a tampon commercial 20 years after I'm dead" and invoking "kakistocracy" to describe American leadership. At the ceremony itself, Yahoo Entertainment reports Laura Dern presented the award, reading tributes from Brad Pitt, Adam Sandler and Steven Soderbergh. Clooney told the crowd that after 45 years of acting he never had a plan, calling his career "a series of happy accidents." He owns a home at Lake Como and married Amal in Venice in 2014.

AP News reports the opening-night film reportedly earned a five-minute standing ovation and stars Guy Pearce as Murdoch and Jack O'Connell as tabloid editor Larry Lamb, adapting James Graham's acclaimed play. Pearce quipped that Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth told him "Dad's very happy that you are playing him" — before Murdoch had seen the film. Boyle told reporters the point was not to "monsterize" Murdoch, and he warned that tech giants' AI could replace journalists, asking whether an AI journalist would "speak truth to the power that's created it." Festival director Alberto Barbera flagged "Ink" as a possible Oscar contender, per AP News.

The celebratory opening ran into an uncomfortable countercurrent. AP News reports only one competition film is directed by a woman, with the documentary "NAZA," added last week, co-directed by another. Jury president Maggie Gyllenhaal called the shortfall a "systemic problem" tied to financing and preconceived notions, deadpanning that "men make better movies than women do" before pivoting to the structural barriers. The Guardian adds that London festival director Kristy Matheson said female filmmakers are "squeezed out" beyond debuts: 43% of LFF titles are female-made, yet only two of 21 galas are directed by women.

AP News reports the lineup leans into current events rather than escapism, including documentaries on Gaza ("NAZA"), Elon Musk ("Musk"), and independent Russian journalists covering Ukraine ("My Undesirable Friends — Part II: Exile"), plus Palestinian films and a short about ICE in Minneapolis. Gyllenhaal argued films are "fundamentally, unavoidably political" and that the answer to making art in a world in emergency "has something to do with empathy." Barbera told AP the festival "didn't really have a choice" because most submitted films dealt with contemporary problems.

The festival runs through Sept. 12, with Barbera's launch-pad reputation suggesting "Ink" could carry momentum into awards season, per AP News. The gender-representation scrutiny that Gyllenhaal and Barbera both acknowledged — Barbera calling it "a big problem" — is likely to shadow the Golden Lion race and follow the conversation to London's BFI festival, which The Guardian reports runs Oct. 7-19 with Simon Stone's "Elsinore" opening and Jesse Eisenberg's "The Debut" closing. Clooney's remarks on the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, which he called "a complicated thing," keep industry consolidation in the frame alongside the art.