A new film about the rise of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and "The Sun” editor Larry Lamb has been selected to open the Venice International Film Festival, organizers said Thursday. Directed by "Trainspotting” filmmaker Danny Boyle, "Ink” is an adaptation of James Graham’s acclaimed play, which dramatizes Murdoch’s 1969 acquisition of the daily newspaper "The Sun.”
Guy Pearce plays Murdoch and Jack O’Connell plays Lamb in the film about how they turned the paper into Britain’s most influential tabloid. Claire Foy also co-stars.
"Long before Fox News, click bait, and Truth Social; decades before Twitter, Facebook, Google (and) Only Fans, these (two) men created a new tabloid which against all the odds became the biggest selling newspaper in the world,” Boyle said in a statement. The paper, he added, "challenged the establishment and remade our world for the modern era.”
Boyle said it was a huge honor to be selected, noting that, "I’ve been to the Biennale many times, but this is my baptism at the film festival.”
"Ink” will be playing in competition at the 83rd edition of the festival, which kicks off on Sept. 2. The full slate of films vying for the Golden Lion is expected to be revealed next week.
The play opened in London in 2017, and went to Broadway in 2019, where it was nominated for, and won, multiple Tony Awards.
"I started writing this way before (U.S. President Donald) Trump, way before Brexit,” Graham told The Associated Press (AP) in 2017. "But I knew I wanted to capture what was clearly in the air about populism."
