First Man: Ryan Gosling, Damien Chazelle's Neil Armstrong biopic to open 2018 Venice Film Festival

The 2018 Venice Film Festival, scheduled to commence on 29 August and run till 8 September, has confirmed that First Man, Universal’s Neil Armstrong biopic starring Ryan Gosling, will open its 75th anniversary edition, according to a report by The Hollywood Reporter.

First Man will be the second trip to Venice Film Festival for the duo of director Damien Chazelle and star Ryan Gosling. Their last collaboration, La La Land, premiered at Venice in 2016 and went on to win several accolades, including receiving 14 nominations at the 89th Academy Awards. While Chazelle won the Best Director at the Academy Awards, Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight walked away with Best Picture.

A still from First Man/Image from YouTube.

First Man, Chazelle’s follow-up to La La Land, looks at Neil Armstrong’s life and the legendary July 1969 moon-landing mission that delivered on President Kennedy’s promise of eight years earlier. Claire Foy, Patrick Fugit, Brian James d’Arcy, Ethan Embry, Corey Stoll, Jason Clarke, Shea Whigham, Lukas Haas and Pablo Schreiber are among the many names in the film.

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Claire Foy appears as Armstrong’s wife, Janet Shearon, while Corey Stoll and Lukas Haas play fellow astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, respectively. Universal has set 12 October as the date for its North American release.

Before this, other movies to have opened Venice Film Festival have been Downsizing, Everest, Birdman, Gravity, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, The Ides of March, and Black Swan. Guillermo del Toro, whose Oscar-winning The Shape of Water premiered in Venice last year, will head the festival jury.