Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix are lighting up the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday as a loved-up couple of villains in Joker: Folie à deux by Todd Phillips, sequel of the first Joker which won the fest's Golden Lion in 2019.
The follow-up premiering Wednesday sees Arthur Fleck awaiting trial in Arkham for his crimes as Joker.
Arthur needs to deal with his double identity when he falls deeply in love and discovers the music that has always beaten within his heart.
Gaga, who plays his foil Harley Quinn, told reporters: "I and Phoenix find ourselves singing again because it's a way to express what we feel, which we can't convey in words".
Also premiering on Wednesday is Italy's fourth film of five in competition, Diva Futura (Future Diva) by Giulia Louise Steirgerwalt, a portrait of Riccardo Schicchi and the stars of his porn 'empire' between the 1980s and 90s, when Ilona 'Cicciolina' Staller, Moana Pozzi and Eva Henger became household names.
The film, which does not have explicit sex scenes, details how Staller and Pozzi launched the Love Party and Pozzi, who stood for Rome mayor, famously said "the only casting sessions in which I wasn't molested were those for porn films".
Jouer avec le Feu by Delphine and Muriel Coulin, also in competition, focuses on the conflict between father and son when the boy becomes a member of a group of violent far-right militants. .
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