La Biennale di Venezia has announced that Ink, directed by the Academy and BAFTA award-winning Danny Boyle (28 Years Later, Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire), written by multi-Olivier award-winning playwright and screenwriter James Graham (Dear England, Sherwood, Brexit), shot by Alwin H. Küchler BSC and starring Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy, is the opening film, in a world premiere in competition, of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival.
Ink will have its world premiere screening on Wednesday 2 September 2026 in the Sala Grande at the Palazzo del Cinema (Lido di Venezia) on the opening night of the 83rd Biennale Cinema.
Boyle said: “I’ve been to the Biennale many times, but this is my baptism at the film festival – a huge honour to be in a city of such extraordinary art and opening this great festival with my new film Ink.
“1969 – the year we first walked on the moon, and the year Rupert Murdoch and Larry Lamb launched a newspaper that was to change the world far more.
“Long before Fox News, clickbait, 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.
“Cheeky, irreverent, daring: The super soaraway Sun challenged the establishment and remade our world for the modern era. A script by James Graham I felt compelled and privileged to make.”
“An Oscar-winning director, one of the leading playwrights on the London theatre scene, and three of the most acclaimed actors in contemporary British cinema – these are the credentials behind Danny Boyle’s film,” stated festival director Alberto Barbera, “enhanced by the performances of Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy, which screenwriter James Graham adapted from his own play of the same name.
“It is an account of publisher Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of the daily newspaper The Sun, which he entrusted to the unscrupulous Larry Lamb, turning it into Britain’s best-selling tabloid at the expense of its rival, The Mirror.
“I would like to thank StudioCanal, Media Res, and House Productions for granting us the honour of opening the Venice Film Festival with such a highly anticipated film.”
