He may be one of Hollywood’s biggest actors, but George Clooney couldn’t resist getting behind the camera on the red carpet of the Venice Film Festival on Friday evening.
The acting legend, 65, attended the premiere of his film Furies, a Lebanese heist thriller.
Early reviews from critics at the festival praised the drama, calling it compelling and action-packed.
Clooney, who arrived in Venice with his wife Amal, serves as executive producer of the film and received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement Award on the opening day of the festival.
Dressed in a navy blue suit and a partially unbuttoned shirt, the actor appeared cheerful as he posed with the rest of the cast and playfully took photos with a huge camera.
He may be one of Hollywood’s biggest actors, but George Clooney couldn’t resist getting behind the camera on the red carpet of the Venice Film Festival on Friday evening.
The acting legend, 65, attended the premiere of his film Furies, a Lebanese heist thriller
The plot follows two sisters (Rym Mroue as Maro and Maria Nakouzi as Dalia) who devise a plan to rob a bank to reclaim their own frozen savings from corrupt financial institutions.
Furies takes place after the economic collapse in Beirut. The plot follows two sisters (Rym Mroue as Maro and Maria Nakouzi as Dalia) who devise a plan to rob a bank to reclaim their own frozen savings from corrupt financial institutions. It is directed by Rami Kodeih.
The Hollywood Reporter wrote: ‘From the opening scenes in a bank, where bureaucratic blah-di-blah gives way to sheer terror, to the gripping final scene, the film infuses a tried-and-tested genre with the unpredictable energy of real people interacting with each other – and, crucially, the casual wise humor of siblings who know and love each other deeply, brought to messy, magnificent life in two spectacular performances.’
IndieWire called filmmaking “kinetic and alive.”
They wrote: ‘The beats are familiar, the story formal, but the filmmaking is kinetic and alive, worthy of the largest possible audience.
“George Clooney stepped in as executive producer, but my understanding is that his role was more to get out of the way and support serious filmmaking than to intervene creatively.”
Screen daily called it a “messy but enjoyable watch” and praised Rym and Maria’s on-screen chemistry.
They said: ‘Powered by the significant awards success of his short films (including A Sheherazade Tale, The Mill, Maki & Zorro and Alina) and by the presence of George Clooney and Grant Heslov as executive producers, this vibrant full-blooded crime thriller should generate a lot of buzz following its premiere in Venice’s Spotlight program and subsequent screening in TIFF’s Centerpiece program.
‘It’s a messy but enjoyable watch and while the details of the plot may not be as tight as they could be, the extraordinary chemistry between Nakouzi and Mroue is the glue that holds the crackling chaos together. ‘
The film’s stars Rym Mroue and Maria Nakouzi posed with George, who was executive producer
Dressed in a navy blue suit and a partially unbuttoned shirt, the actor appeared cheerful as he posed with the rest of the cast and playfully took photos with a huge camera.
In the nearly thirty years since George attended his first Venice Film Festival with Out of Sight, he has become a fixture
In the nearly 30 years since George attended his first Venice Film Festival with Out of Sight he has become a permanent fixture.
It is a place where he has had many important moments, from his wedding at Aman Venice to the debut of Good Night, and Good Luck, which earned him his first Oscar nomination for best director.
Last year he was on Jay Kelly, in which he plays a movie star who travels to Italy for a Lifetime Achievement Award.
And the actor paid tribute to his ‘bada*s’ lawyer wife in his acceptance speech for his Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement on Wednesday.
Amal, a British-Lebanese human rights lawyer, has represented Yazidi survivors and secured historic legal victories by holding ISIS members accountable for genocide.
“By the way, my wife is the only person who has ever tried ISIS and won,” the Hollywood star said. “She’s a tough girl and she gets the job done. We do it for our families. We do it for our friends.’
He added: “Amal has taken some very difficult positions over the years, and we have received some pretty heavy criticism on that basis. I wrote an op-ed about President Joe Biden. I have some ***.
‘We have really interesting conversations at the table. But you know, we also have two nine-year-old children, and we have a normal family life, and there’s a lot of laughter and a lot of love, and we’re very lucky, and we realize that very well.”
