Chastain closes out strongly political Venice festival

VENICE

Has the Venice Film Festival saved its best for last? Oscar-winner Jessica Chastain is back on Sept. 8 with a provocative romance between a recovering alcoholic and dementia patient in "Memory.”

Instant Oscar frontrunners and hard-hitting political dramas have emerged from the 80th edition of the festival, which draws to a close with the winner of the Golden Lion announced on Saturday.

Among the highlights of the 23 entries, Emma Stone looks like a shoo-in for award nominations with her hilarious and shockingly explicit turn as a sex-hungry reanimated corpse in "Poor Things,” a feminist reworking of Frankenstein.

So do Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan for their roles as conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife Felicia in Cooper's elegant biopic, "Maestro".

Biopics were a thing this year: from Michael Mann's long-awaited take on racing car impresario Enzo Ferrari starring Adam Driver and Penelope Cruz, to Sofia Coppola's lauded "Priscilla" about the wife of Elvis Presley.

The closing film of the competition is "Memory" from Mexican director Michel Franco, premiering on Sept. 8, which tackles numerous issues from buried trauma to the rights of disabled adults to maintain control over their lives.

It stars Chastain in her first role since winning an Oscar for "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" two years ago, alongside Peter Sarsgaard.

The jury, led by Damien Chazelle ("La La Land") and including Jane Campion and last year's winner Laura Poitras, may be swayed by more political entries.

Critics have been impressed by two powerful migrant dramas.

"Io Capitano" tells the epic and brutally powerful story of a Senegalese teenager crossing Africa to reach Europe, with newcomer Seydou Sarr wowing audiences in the central role.

And "Green Border" offered a harrowing account of refugees trapped between Belarus and Poland during a real-life crisis on the EU border in 2021.