The Kardashians today couldn’t keep up with their old selves, as evidenced by the first episode of their first foray into reality TV.

The Venice Film Festival on Tuesday is unveiling the films screening at the 80th Biennale, including the movies competing for this year’s Golden Lion.

Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera and Roberto Cicutto, president of La Biennale di Venezia, the umbrella organization that runs the world’s oldest film fest, will reveal the titles in Venice in a ceremony live-streamed on the festival’s website, as well as on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Damien Chazelle, who premiered La La Land and First Man in competition in Venice, heads up this year’s international jury, with directors Jane Campion, Martin McDonagh, and Laura Poitras also judging the main competition titles.

With the ongoing SAG-AFTRA actors and WGA writers strike preventing top U.S. talent from doing promotional work, this year’s Venice line-up could look substantially different than it would have just two weeks ago. Barbera has already told his staff to prepare a plan B should invited American films not be able to participate in the festival because of the strikes.

Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers, a ménage à trois tennis drama starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist, was set to open the 2023 Venice Festival in an out-of-competition slot but was pulled last week, after MGM announced it was pushing the release of the R-rated tennis drama to April 26, 2024. Instead, Comandante, an Italian period drama from director Edoardo De Angelis starring Pierfrancesco Favino (The Traitor) will open the fest on August 30. Society of the Snow, J.A. Bayona’s survival thriller, produced for Netflix, will close the 2023 Venice Film Festival on September 9.

Barbera said the program for the 80th festival had already been finalized ahead of the strike, but that the impact of the labor action on the final line-up “has been quite modest” with only Challengers pulling out.

“The other American movies we had invited and have been confirmed and will be present,” he said. He noted that the SAG-AFTRA strikes will mean some “actors and actresses” will not attend but that talent from independent films will be able to come, meaning that the red carpet “will not be empty.”

Individual films could still get special dispensation from SAG-AFTRA to allow actors to do promotional work. The Toronto Film Festival announced its first group of 2023 titles on Monday and they included several star-studded films, including Craig Gillespie’s Dumb Money, with Paul Dano, Pete Davidson, Shailene Woodley and Seth Rogen; Netflix movies NYAD featuring Jodie Foster and Annette Bening, the Michael Keaton-directed Knox Goes Away, in which he stars alongside Marcia Gay Harden and James Marsden; and Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut Woman of the Hour.

Venice’s Horizons sidebar will include such highlights as Behind the Mountains, a Tunisian drama from director Mohamed Ben Attia, The Red Suitcase, the debut feature from Nepalese filmmaker Fidel Devkota, and Tatami, the new film co-directed by Israel’ Guy Nattiv and Iranian actress-turned-director Zar Amir Ebrahimi (Holy Spider) which tells the true story of an Iranian Judo champion who refused to fight an Israeli competitor.

Barbera also unveiled the documentaries screening in Venice’s special non-fiction sidebar, which will include Michael Gondry’s Do It Yourself.

Venice had been hoping to outshine Cannes with its 80th edition, a tall order, strike or no strike, given the French fest set a high bar this year, with an official selection that included Harrison Ford blockbuster Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Wes Anderson’s star-studded Asteroid City and Todd Haynes’s May December, as well as a doubling down on international auteurs, with new films from Ken Loach (The Old Oak), Wim Wenders (Perfect Days) and Hirokazu Kore-eda (Monster).

Barbera has more than held his own in recent years. His 2022 selection included several award contenders — Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale with the eventual best actor Oscar winner Brendan Fraser, Todd Field’s Tár, Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin — and plenty of splashy scandals, around the likes of Andrew Dominik’s drama Blonde, starring Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe, and Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling with the infamous “spit-gate” incident between stars Chris Pine and Harry Styles.

But it will be a challenge to generate the same level of excitement with Hollywood’s A-list off the red carpet and on the picket line.

Since launching on Netflix on July 15, Indian crime drama Kohrra has shot to the top of the streamer’s Indian rankings and had critics, audiences and industry figures including Karan Johar raving about the show.

In addition to describing it as an atmospheric murder mystery, local critics have praised the series for being an incisive portrait of contemporary Punjab, the northwestern Indian state where it is set. 

The six-part series follows two cops – played by Suvinder Vicky and Barun Sobti – investigating the murder of an NRI (non-resident Indian) who lives in London but has travelled to India for an arranged marriage. After he’s found dead in a field, with the British friend who had accompanied him also missing, the cops start to unravel not just a murder case, but a complex web of family secrets, land-related power plays, childhood trauma and parental patriarchy. 

Randeep Jha, who also directed critically acclaimed drama Trial By Fire, directed the series, which is produced by Clean Slate Films and also stars Manish Chaudhary, Varun Badola, Amaninder Pal Singh, Aanand Priya, Arjuna Bhalla, Harleen Sehti and British actress Rachel Shelley. 

Showrunner Sudip Sharma, who worked with writers Gunjit Chopra and Diggi Sisodia on the series, is no stranger to hardboiled crime drama as he also created investigative thriller Paatal Lok, one of India’s most critically acclaimed shows. He also knows Punjab as his credits include co-writing Abhishek Chaubey’s 2016 feature film Udta Punjab, a crime drama revolving around the state’s drugs trafficking industry. 

Sharma tells Deadline that when Chopra and Sisodia approached him with the project, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to do another crime drama so soon after Paatal Lok, but saw the potential in their idea. “It was so nuanced, because Gunjit had spent a lot of time in Punjab, and I’d already written one film there, but felt I’d only scratched the surface and there was a lot more to explore in terms of the land and the culture.” 

Home to India’s Sikh community, Sharma explains that Punjab “has a culture of its own, a religion and politics of its own, and a language of its own – what’s fascinating about India is that so many regions have their own distinct subcultures.” 

As a frontier state, Punjab has historically been known as a ‘land of warriors’, as it was always first in line to repel invaders, although the unfortunate downside to that border status has been the drugs trade and patriarchy. However, Sharma says he also finds it a place where “the women stand up for themselves and have a lot of agency, something we’ve tried to reflect in the story of Kohrra, especially towards the end.” 

In contemporary times, the relatively wealthy state is also known as the homeland of affluent NRI communities in the U.S. and UK and for having a huge influence on Bollywood and the global music scene through its pop culture and musicians. 

Kohrra refers to those connections with the West through scenes set in London and by giving a fairly pivotal role to Shelley, known for her roles in The L Word, Casualty and Indian feature Lagaan, who plays the mother of the missing Brit. “I wanted a British actor who has a successful career in the West, but also understands what it means to shoot in India,” Sharma says smiling. “She fit the profile perfectly – a great actor who can deal with the madness.” 

Meanwhile, Indian critics have been raving about the performances of the Punjabi cast – in particular Vicky as the older cop, whose character has a complex backstory also involving passion and patriarchy. Sharma says that, in order to keep the show authentic, he wanted to shoot on location in Punjab, using local actors and the Punjabi language (Hindi and other language dubs are available on Netflix). 

“We have a few actors from Bombay, but all who can speak Punjabi. Fortunately, Punjab has a very vibrant local film and TV industry,” Sharma explains. “Our casting director Nikita Grover was in Punjab for three months scouting local actors, theatre centers and colleges and did a great job.”  

Sharma was one of the first film writers in India to morph into the role of writer-showrunner, still a relatively rare occupation in India, although more are starting to emerge.

“Long-form quality storytelling is still relatively new in India – we were all just thrown into the fire and had to learn by watching our idols,” says Sharma, citing U.S. shows like The Sopranos and The Wire as an early inspiration. “We’re still understanding what showrunning means, specifically in the Indian context, because it’s always been such a director-led industry.”

Since he started writing Paatal Lok in 2016 (the show streamed on Prime Video in 2020), Sharma says he’s seen the platforms in India evolve from an “anything goes” mentality, to scrambling over the censorship clampdown following the controversy over Prime Video’s Tandav in 2021, to becoming much more selective and focusing on specific genres. 

“A lot of crime dramas are getting made, and not all of them are engaging, but the data is pushing that and I think we’re starting to see bit of audience fatigue,” Sharma observes. “The other focus right now is young adult content, so when you meet executives from the platforms, they’ll be asking if you have anything in young adult.” 

He adds that the current censorship climate has made it “difficult to tell larger socio-political stories” on Indian platforms, although he’s currently editing a second series of Paatal Lok, which Prime Video is planning to stream next year. Kohrra skirts censorship issues by talking about society through the context of family dynamics, rather than state or national politics. 

However, he says that this was also a creative choice, as he’s drawn to detailed character development, and wanted to explore those aspects of writing, rather than just big concept or plot-driven drama. “I’m a big fan of UK detective series like Broadchurch, Happy Valley and Shetland – they really tread that line where American crime dramas sometimes fail of being able to hold plot and character together.” 

With a background in management and business studies, Sharma has experience in project management, something which he believes has helped him develop as a showrunner. He also occasionally works as a creative producer on projects such as Netflix series Mai.  

“We really need to train writers into showrunning in this country because they’ve been so removed from the filmmaking process in the past,” says Sharma. “Once that happens, we’ll see a big change in the quality of content coming out.” 

Sharma is also starting to look beyond India by developing shows that he’s pitching to international players. Through his association with Tulsea, the Mumbai and Los Angeles-based talent agency that reps him, he’s also been working as a consulting and/or executive producer on India-themed international shows with producers including Sister Pictures. 

“We haven’t had a series that can travel the way Narcos or Squid Game did, but as we develop our capabilities, we should be able to do that,” he says. “The ecosystem lacks a bit of ambition around here. We’re happy making shows for local audiences, probably because it’s a big enough market. But I really believe we can aim higher than that.”

“Barbie” is a box office smash, along with its acclaim from critics and audiences alike. If you follow the social media chatter and the general feeling from most pundits, it could be a viable awards contender for Warner Bros. One category being debated is where the screenplay by Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach would be able to compete — whether in original or adapted screenplay. The answer lies in how the WGA classifies it and whether the Academy could or would overrule that choice.

Variety confirms there are ongoing conversations with strategists and Warner Bros regarding where “Barbie” would compete at next year’s ceremony.

On the title cards, it reads “Based on ‘Barbie’ by Mattel,” which is, of course, a toy company. At the same time, there have been multiple CGI films and TV series featuring the fashion doll since its debut in the late 1980s (42 to be precise). This would point to an “adapted” run. However, take the case of Pixar’s inaugural feature “Toy Story” (1995), which picked up an original screenplay nom (Joss Whedon, Andrew Stanton, Joel Cohen, Alec Sokolow, John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Joe Ranft). In that case, it offers a pathway for original. The CGI classic features characters such as Mr. Potato Head, a Hasbro product, and other toys such as Etch A Sketch, Magic 8 Ball and even parts of Barbie herself. Part of the Mutant Toys, which are creations of Andy’s sadistic kid neighbor Sid, he has one called “Legs” — which are a pair of Barbie doll legs attached to a green toy fishing rod.

In addition, any number of biopics about historical figures have been able to compete and/or win original screenplay, such as Dustin Lance Black’s “Milk” about the first gay elected official Harvey Milk or Anthony McCarten’s “Darkest Hour” about British figure Winston Churchill.

Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine” with Oscar winner Cate Blanchett was an inspired tribute to the 1951 Elia Kazan movie “A Streetcar Named Desire,” along with the original play by Tennessee Williams. Nonetheless, it was recognized as an original work.

The WGA is one step, but the Writers Branch of the Academy is another.

In the past, the WGA has classified works such as “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” “Moonlight” and “Whiplash” as original works. However, the Academy felt the adapted category was the more appropriate route for all three. Even presumed adapted works such as “Syriana” by Stephen Gaghan, which the WGA and the filmmakers said was loosely based on the Robert Baer 20023 memoir “See No Evil,” was kicked to the opposite category.

From a competitive standpoint, previous Oscar nominees Gerwig and Baumbach competing against independent dramas like “Past Lives” (Celine Song) or dramedies like “May December” (Sam Burch, Alex Mechanik) would present a better winning opportunity than going against “Barbenheimer” rival “Oppenheimer” (Christopher Nolan) or a movie featuring legends like “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese). Also, comedies have a better track record in original screenplay, with past winners such as “Annie Hall,” “Juno” and “Little Miss Sunshine.” In adapted, it would be up against the more “serious” movies. Some examples of comedies losing include “The Devil Wears Prada” to “The Departed” or “The Full Monty” to “L.A. Confidential.”

Also noteworthy is the possibility of other significant films moving out of 2023, such as its Warner Bros counterpart “The Color Purple” and “Dune: Part Two.” Each film that gets moved improves the odds for those that have been released.

The debate will be ongoing, and we’ll likely not get the definitive answer until closer to the nomination voting opening in January, when ballots are shown. In the meantime, the world continues to enjoy the “sublime” Barbie world.