ROME — W.E., the second directorial effort from pop music icon Madonna, will premiere at this year’s Venice Film Festival, according to the TV&Showbiz column in Friday’s edition of London’s Daily Mail.
The festival will not announce it’s official lineup until July, and festival officials contacted Friday said they had no comment on the story from Daily Mail columnist Baz Bamingboye.
The story said that the 52-year-old Madonna would travel to the Venice Lido for the 68th edition of festival, which will take place Aug. 31-Sept. 10.
Also expected to make the trip are Andrea Riseborough, who stars in the film as Wallis Simpson, the American divorcee who married Edward VII, the British king who was forced to abdicate the throne after all 11-month reign in 1936 in order to marry her, and Abbie Cornish, who plays the role of Wally Winthrop, a contemporary woman obsessed with Simpson’s story. The film tells the story of both women.
Madonna’s 14-year-old daughter Lourdes is reported to have a cameo role in the film as well.
Some clips from the film were shown at last month’s Berlin Film Festival in order to attract buyers for the product. But the first full public showing will be in Venice, the article said.
If the news is true, it will be the first time the Material Girl appeared on the Venice Lido in connection with a film. Her only other directing credit was for 2008 film Filth and Wisdom, and she appeared as an actress in around half a dozen big screen films — most notably in the title role of Evitain 1996 — but none of them screened in Venice.
