George Clooney, Maggie Gyllenhaal Headline New Creativity Forum in Venice
George Clooney, Maggie Gyllenhaal and composer Alexandre Desplat will join an inaugural forum on the future of creativity on 4 September in Venice, held alongside the Venice Film Festival. The event, titled "The Future of… Creativity," is presented by the advisory firm Finch & Partners and the talent agency CAA, and is invitation-only. It takes place at the Scuola Vecchia della Misericordia, a 16th-century building in the Cannaregio district. Variety
The forum's host is Alberto Barbera, the festival's artistic director. Clooney already has business on the Lido this year: he is set to receive the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement, the festival's highest honour. Gyllenhaal is serving as jury president, overseeing the panel that awards the main competition prizes. Both roles place them at the centre of the festival's 2026 edition. Variety
The panel reaches well beyond cinema. Joining Desplat are the Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore, Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça (a poet and Vatican librarian), the sculptors Kennedy Yanko and Marc Quinn, the privacy advocate and Signal president Meredith Whittaker, and the Australian director Shannon Murphy. A press release describes the aim as gathering voices from literature, cinema, the visual arts and technology to explore where creativity is heading in an era of transformational change. Variety
Barbera framed the stakes plainly. In a statement, he said artificial intelligence may prove the greatest change yet in storytelling, with an impact potentially greater than the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century. Claire Ingle-Finch, managing partner at Finch & Partners, said the forum brings together people who have given their lives to storytelling to discuss what the moment means for the craft. Roeg Sutherland, co-head of CAA Media Finance, said the forums convene those who shape culture and are dedicated to sustaining and protecting art while embracing new forms of expression. Variety
The Venice event builds on a first edition held during the Cannes Film Festival in May, under the banner "The Future of… Film." That session featured directors Darren Aronofsky, James Gray, Nadine Labaki, Whit Stillman and J.A. Bayona. Variety
For Finch & Partners, the forum is an extension of work that spans film awards strategy and brand-building. The firm has run Oscar campaigns for Netflix titles including Roma, The Irishman, The Power of the Dog and Emilia Pérez, and has consulted on restaurant and fashion ventures such as the Chucs London brand and Zegna's global ambassador appointment. Finch & Partners
What gives the Venice lineup its bite is the mix. A cardinal, a privacy campaigner, a Hollywood star and a sculptor sharing a stage is not the usual festival circuit. The thread connecting them is Barbera's premise — that AI may reshape storytelling as fundamentally as mechanisation reshaped manufacturing. Whether the conversation lives up to that billing will play out behind closed doors; the forum is invitation-only, with no public livestream announced.
