With Sarah Polley‘s first documentary, the autobiographical Stories We Tell premiering at the Venice Film Festival this week and starting to make its festival rounds, it’s only appropriate that the production’s first trailer has arrived. The doc was first teased as centering on a “family of storytellers” and the way they all communicate and interpret the same shared stories – enticing enough, and all the more so when Polley revealed just yesterday that both the family and the story were her own. The film’s first trailer adeptly obscures the ostensible heart of its own subject matter (which Polley blogged about yesterday), instead tantalizing us with the promise of revealing a look at Polley’s mother’s entire life by way of lots of archival footage (her mother was also an actress) and interviews with much of her family, including Polley’s own father and siblings. It is, at turns, funny (Polley directing her own father is a sweet and amusing way to reveal her involvement), sad (her siblings remember the passing of their mother in very personal ways), and intriguing (just what is that thing they’ve all joked about that proves true?). But what’s really most compelling about this brief first look is Polley herself, sitting quietly in a chair, having taking a time out from an interview that’s clearly proved too hard to handle, head in her hands. It’s a tiny moment, but enormously moving. Check out the first trailer for Stories We Tell after the break.

Just last week we reported that Robert Redford’s latest film, The Company You Keep, managed to score a distribution deal before it even played any festivals. Well, the film is gearing up to play Venice and Toronto regardless, so TIFF has released a trailer promoting it. Complete with typewriter sounds and vintage news footage, said trailer starts off by making The Company You Keep look like it’s going to be an authentic, journalistic look at the history of the radical anti-war group The Weather Underground, but then we’re suddenly dumped into present day, and it’s revealed that this is actually going to be a fun-looking chase movie about the last few members of the movement still being on the run from the law. The Company You Keep is full of grizzled old activists/bank robbers, plucky young reporters, plucky young F.B.I. agents, action, intrigue, murder, and a cast that features names like Redford, Susan Sarandon, Shia LaBeouf, Brendan Gleeson, Anna Kendrick, Terrence Howard, Nick Nolte, Sam Elliott, Richard Jenkins, Chris Cooper, Brit Marling, Julie Christie, Stephen Root, and Stanley Tucci.

Multi-hyphenate Sarah Polley has already lovingly crafted two beautiful feature films – Away From Her and Take This Waltz – and is now expending her directorial repertoire to include a documentary that sounds as if it will fit perfectly inside her already immensely accomplished work (we’re fans of her, okay?). That new film, Stories We Tell, is now set to debut at the Venice Film Festival, and the only question more pressing than “wait, how expensive is it to fly to Venice?” is “wait, just what is this film about?” The film is Polley’s first venture into documentary filmmaking, and one she’s been working on since 2008, when the CFC/NFB Feature Documentary Program was first unveiled. Little is known about the film, including the details of its subjects, but we do know that it centers on “a family of storytellers” that Polley interviews about the same subjects with unexpectedly different results. Stories We Tell will have its World Premiere in the Venice Days program as part of the Venice Film Festival later this summer (August 29 -  September 8). Produced by Anita Lee and Silva Basmajian, the film was made in collaboration with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and their still-blossoming feature documentary program. Check out the film’s official (though still vague) synopsis after the break.

This weekend’s 38th annual Telluride Film Festival has just announced their slate, including a number of buzzed-about titles from the likes of Cronenberg, Payne, Ramsay, Kaurismäki, Scorsese, Herzog, and McQueen. Telluride differs from other film festivals by keeping mum on its lineup until the day before the festival opens, though speculation runs high in the weeks before opening, with a bevy of well-educated guesses often revealing the festival’s top picks well in advance (an example from this year would be We Need to Talk About Kevin, as star Tilda Swinton is a consistent Telluride favorite). The festival will continue to announce additions to its lineup throughout its run. The festival seems to have a taken a number of cues from Cannes and Venice, with Cannes picks The Artist, Le Havre, Footnote, The Kid with a Bike, Bonsai, and We Need to Talk About Kevin showing, along with Venice films A Dangerous Method and Shame. The festival also announced that they will be bestowing the Silver Medallion Awards (which “recognize an artist’s contribution to the world of cinema”) to George Clooney (starring in The Descendants at the festival), Swinton, and French filmmaker-actor Pierre Etaix. The festival runs this weekend, from September 2 through September 5. Check out the full lineup for the festival’s main program, which also includes Albert Nobbs, Living in the Material World, and The Tuirn Horse, after the break.

Considering how much I like striped shirts, pasta, and films from controversial Greek directors, it looks like I may need to stow away in someone’s suitcase and get over to Italy next month for the 68th Venice Film Festival. The fest, which runs from August 31 to September 10, has just released their lineup for the year, and I may be speaking out of my macaroni here, but this batch of films really wets my noodle. Nathan already reported last month that George Clooney’s The Ides of March was likely to join the festival, and today’s announcement confirms that twofold – Ides will not only show at the festival, it will serve as opening night film. Other good stuff here includes Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (which has one of my favorite trailers of the year), Roman Polanski’s adaptation of play God of Carnage (shortened to Carnage), Ami Canaan Mann’s Texas Killing Fields, David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, Steve McQueen’s Shame, Todd Solondz’s Dark Horse, Madonna’s W.E., Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion, and Dogtooth director Yorgos Lanthimos’s Alps. In short terms, this is an incredible lineup of films that I cannot even remotely snark on, because I would probably do something violent if it meant I could go to the festival. Check out the full list of films after the break.

George Clooney has a new political film on the way, which shouldn’t come as any surprise to anyone. But there’s new news that the film will be opening the Venice Film Festival, which… uh, shouldn’t come as any surprise to anyone. The new movie is called The Ides of March, and it’s an adaptation of a Beau Willimon play called “Farragut North.” But that’s an obscure reference to a stop on the DC metro line, so they decided to go all Shakespearean on the title for a film adaptation. Clooney directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Grant Heslov. The story is a sort-of take on the 2004 Democratic primary campaign of Howard Dean, with Clooney as the Howard Dean type, Ryan Gosling playing his naïve, young spokesman, and Paul Giamatti a rival campaign manager. Also involved are names like Philip Seymour Hoffman, Marissa Tomei, Jeffrey Wright, and Evan Rachel Wood. Whoa: good names. Clooney is no stranger to the Venice Film Festival, as in 2005 they showered him with awards for Good Night, and Good Luck, he’s been there to promote stuff like his Coen brothers collaboration Burn After Reading, and they even let him promote that one boring thing The Men Who Stare at Goats there two years ago. Suffice it to say, Clooney’s standing with the Fest is strong. There has been no official word that The Ides of March will be the film opening the fest, but Variety claims to have a source that’s let the information

The Venice Film Festival has announced it’s 2009 line-up this week, showing off the films that will make-up it’s 66th annual fest.