Every September, Venice – a city already accustomed to grand entrances – becomes the stage for cinema’s most anticipated arrivals. First held in 1932, the Venice International Film Festival is the oldest in the world. Its 83rd edition runs from 2–12 September 2026 on the Lido, the long barrier island separating the Venetian Lagoon from the Adriatic. It is a short boat ride from central Venice and cars can make the crossing by ferry.
This year’s line-up arrives with the awards-season machinery already beginning to whirr. Danny Boyle opens the festival with Ink, a James Graham-scripted drama starring Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy, while A24 brings Primetime, with Robert Pattinson playing a fictionalised Chris Hansen, host of To Catch a Predator. Martin McDonagh – the mordantly funny filmmaker behind In Bruges and The Banshees of Inisherin – returns with Wild Horse Nine, starring John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell and Steve Buscemi, while Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem appear together in Florian Zeller’s Bunker.
The non-fiction programme is no less interesting. Alex Gibney’s Musk examines the power and public mythology surrounding one of the century’s most polarising figures. Julia Loktev, meanwhile, returns to the exiled Russian journalists of her first My Undesirable Friends film in Part II – Exile.
Staying on the Lido has obvious practical advantages. Venice proper, however, has the better after-hours. Cross the lagoon for the screenings, then return to palazzi, bacari and canals once the day’s premieres are over. For anyone who considers the place you wake up part of the entertainment, these five Venetian holiday homes are particularly well cast.
Apartment Aria
There are more discreet ways to stay in Venice, but few that get to the point quite as quickly as Apartment Aria. Set between San Marco and Castello, this two-bedroom home sits beside Santa Maria della Fava, with the Rialto Bridge just 240 metres away and St Mark’s within strolling distance. Its best feature is a large window overlooking the meeting of the San Zulian and Bareteri canals. Exposed brick and timber beams, meanwhile, supply the period detail and the Grand Canal and vaporetto links are less than five minutes away.
Palazzo Perla
Palazzo Perla provides the sort of address Venice Film Festival encourages one to dress up for. The three-bedroom home occupies part of Palazzo Donà Della Trezza, a 13th-century Venetian-Byzantine palace directly on the Grand Canal in San Polo. From the sitting room, dual-aspect windows turn gondola-watching into an indoor pursuit, while the Rialto markets and the district’s bacari are only a few alleys away. There is also, rather wonderfully, a tumble dryer – perhaps the least romantic detail in Venice, but a handy one after several days of festival dressing.
Dimora Sabion
If an ordinary apartment feels slightly under-produced for the occasion, Dimora Sabion supplies production values en-masse. This five-bedroom Venetian mansion spreads across three floors in Dorsoduro, with artwork and antiques throughout, Murano chandeliers above the dining room, a custom-built library and a climate-controlled wine cellar below. There is even an internal lift – a rare intervention in a Venetian home of this age – and, behind the walls, a private courtyard garden. Several vaporetto stops are close at hand, while the Guggenheim, Accademia and Punta della Dogana put some serious art within walking distance. One for a larger group, or anyone who believes festival accommodation ought to come with its own library.
Apartment Vivina
Apartment Vivina has an advantage none of the others can quite claim: a genuine cinematic footnote. The three-bedroom home was once the Venetian residence of Hubert de Givenchy, and one bedroom pays tribute to his friend and muse Audrey Hepburn, complete with fabrics selected by the star herself. It occupies the upper floors of a palazzo in Dorsoduro, close to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and Punta della Dogana, with whitewashed beams, marble bathrooms, three sitting rooms and an altana rooftop terrace overlooking the city.
Palazzo Gioiello
For those who would like Venice Film Festival without navigating Venice-the-city, Palazzo Gioiello offers a corrective. This two-bedroom holiday home sits behind the garden wall of the 15th-century Gothic Palazzo Trevisan Degli Ulivi on Dorsoduro’s Zattere. Inside, French doors run straight from the living space into a private south-facing courtyard planted with trees and centred on an old stone well-head. Private gardens are hardly standard issue in a city built on islands, which is exactly the attraction. Step back through the arched entrance and you are on the Zattere again, with vaporetto stops, galleries and the Accademia close by.
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