Kevin Costner‘s Horizon: An American Saga-Chapter Two will premiere at the 81st Venice International Film Festival.
The second instalment of the Civil War saga – starring Costner alongside Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, Jena Malone and Danny Huston, will screen out-of-competition on Saturday, 7 September.
In an unprecedented move, Horizon: An American Saga-Chapter One, which world premiered in rival festival Cannes in May, will be screened earlier in the day.
Venice’s decision to celebrate Chapter 2 comes just weeks after plans to launch the second instalment theatrically on August 16 in the U.S. were delayed after a sluggish box office performance for Chapter 1 following its July 4 release.
“My dream was always to show Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter Two at the Venice Film Festival,” said Costner.
“The fact that now they have decided to show Chapter One earlier in the day and then the World Premiere of Chapter Two that evening shows not only their belief in how the two films work together but their support of a director’s vision. I’m indebted to Alberto Barbera for his courage and leadership in committing to this cinematic journey. It is with gratitude and excitement that I return to the Venice Film Festival. Long live the movies and those willing to stand for them.”
Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera said it was “a great pleasure and honor” to host both films.
“This late addition to the lineup of the Venice Film Festival pays a heartfelt and respectful tribute to the visionary project of a great actor and director, who invested himself in the epic reconstruction of the years crucial to the founding of the country, digging beyond myth in search of authenticity capable of restoring a piece of history in its complex and contradictory reality,” he said.
New Line Cinema’s Horizon: An American Saga, Chapters One and Two, chronicles the Civil War expansion and settlement of the American West.
Costner wrote the two-part epic, with co-writer Jon Baird (The Explorers Guild) and also produces under the banner of his Territory Pictures.
Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter Two joins a buzzy Venice Line-up which also features Pedro Almodovar’s The Room Next Door, Justine Kurzel’s The Order, Pablo Larrain’s Maria and Luca Guadagnino’s Queer in Competition and an out of competition screening for Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice as the opening film.
The 81st edition runs from August 28 to September 7.
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