Julia Roberts’ ‘After the Hunt’ stirs #MeToo debate at Venice Film Festival

Julia Roberts poses for photographers on the crimson carpet for the movie ‘After the Hunt’ throughout the 82nd version of the Venice Movie Pageant in Venice, Italy, on Friday 29 August 2025. Picture: Alessandra Tarantino/Invision/AP

Venice, Italy – Julia Roberts And filmmaker Luca Guadagnino was confronted with focused questions on complicity and the undermining of the feminist motion at a information convention for “After the Hunt” on Friday, August 29, on the Venice Movie Pageant.

The movie, befell on the planet of upper schooling the place Roberts performs a beloved professor in philosophy, revolves round an accusation of misconduct. Her mentee, performed by Ayo Edebiri, accuses her good friend and colleague, performed by Andrew Garfield, of exceeding the road. The Nora Garrett state of affairs affords no easy or easy resolutions.

A reporter requested Roberts if she thought the movie undermines the feminist motion and the progress of the #MeToo motion.

“I do not essentially suppose that it revives an outdated argument that girls are being arrange towards one another,” mentioned Roberts.

“After the Hunt” confirmed on Thursday night within the press and trade earlier than it premiered on Friday night and rapidly led to the controversy across the pageant, though virtually everybody appeared concerning the wonderful efficiency of Roberts. It obtained an ovation of six minutes after his premiere.

For Roberts, who joked that she beloved ‘the softball questions early within the morning’, the purpose is the conversations that the movie provokes. The slogan on the poster even reads: “Not every thing is meant to make you are feeling snug.”

“That is how we needed it to really feel,” mentioned Roberts. “Everybody comes out with all these totally different emotions and feelings and views. And also you notice strongly what you strongly imagine in and what your beliefs are as a result of all of us set it up for you. So you’re very welcome.”

Guadagnino additionally jumped in and mentioned, “It is how we see the conflict of truths. It isn’t about making a manifesto to breathe new life into outdated -fashioned values.”

Roberts added that they don’t make any explanations with ‘After the Hunt’. As an alternative, she likes to consider it as a digital camera that has stopped from the sky to catch these characters at this thorny second when everybody appears to lie towards themselves and others.

“We at the moment are shedding the artwork of the dialog in humanity,” mentioned Roberts. “If making this movie does one thing, everybody to speak to one another is probably the most thrilling factor we might obtain.”

Michael Stuhlbarg (from left), Ayo Edebiri, Julia Roberts, Chloe Sevigny and Andrew Garfield pose for photographers for photographers within the picture name for the movie “After the Hunt” throughout the 82nd version of the movie Pageant, Italy, Italy, Italy, Italy.

The movie, which Amazon MGM Studios will launch in North American theaters on 10 October, additionally makes use of a well known font for the opening branches: the font in Windsor fashion made well-known by Woody Allen in a few of his most well-known movies, from “Annie Corridor” to “crimes and crimes”. When requested why he selected this, Guadagnino mentioned it’s a massive reply: “Why not?”

Guadagnino went on this selection and mentioned that when he and his workers introduced collectively “after searching”, they might not cease eager about how coupled it felt on the “Nice Oeuvre of Woody Allen” between 1985 and 1991.

“I felt that it was an attention-grabbing wink to think about an artist who has needed to take care of some form of issues about his being and what our accountability is to work with an artist we love,” he mentioned.

The movie doesn’t play in the primary competitors on the pageant, so it’s not for all costs on September 6, however it’s a return to a nicely -known website for Guadagnino. Final yr he introduced “Queer”, with Daniel Craig, and some years in the past he had “Bones & All”, with Timothée Chalamet. His tennis love triangle movie ‘Problem’, with Zendaya, was alleged to open Venice in 2023, however the Hollywood shops a big a part of the pageant of that yr and it was drawn.

Roberts can also be not a newcomer to Venice, who has labored within the metropolis up to now, however this marks her first time on the pageant.

“It is so magical,” Roberts mentioned concerning the metropolis, though she mentioned throughout this journey, “I did not do something exterior of labor.”

Three days in, the 82nd version of the Movie Pageant of Venice is in full swing with many massive premières, together with Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein”, “The Smashing Machine” by Benny Safdie and Kathryn Bigelow’s “A Home of Dynamite.” /RA