Superhero movies be damned, festival season is underway. Indeed, by the time you read this, this writer will be winging his way to (hopefully) sunny Italy to spend ten days or so resolutely avoiding getting anything like a tan at the 69th Venice Film Festival. The first under the new leadership of Alberto Barbera, it's lived up to his promise of being a less glitzy, more sober take, with no major studio fare to be found, and a line up that emphasizes international auteurs over the American and British filmmakers who dominated in previous years.
Even so, it's an incredibly exciting slate, featuring two of the most widely-anticipated premieres of the year, new films from a number of maverick directors, and hopefully plenty of pleasant surprises too. To get you ready for our coverage (which will kick off on Tuesday), we've picked ten of the films we're most looking forward to seeing on the Lido. Keep checking back for the next week or so to read our reviews of all these, and more.