The Oscar and BAFTA-winning director’s adaptation of the acclaimed stage play, Ink, about the birth of The Sun and the rise of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire will have its world premiere on the Lido on 2nd September

“Ink”, the new film from Oscar- and BAFTA-winning director Danny Boyle, will open the 83rd Venice International Film Festival, running from 2nd to 12th September, the festival announced on Thursday. The film will screen as a world premiere in competition.

Boyle, whose credits include “28 Years Later”, “Trainspotting” and “Slumdog Millionaire”, directs a screenplay by playwright and screenwriter James Graham, known for “Dear England”, “Sherwood” and “Brexit: The Uncivil War”. The film stars Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy.

From stage to screen

“Ink” adapts Graham’s acclaimed stage play of the same name, which charted the rise of the Murdoch media empire through the founding of The Sun newspaper in the 1960s. Pearce takes on the role of Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch, with O’Connell playing newspaper editor Larry Lamb, the man Murdoch installed at the helm of the fledgling tabloid.

The festival describes the film as the story of a group of bold misfits who changed journalism by giving people a fresh, sensational style of news — a account of how a small, scrappy editorial team upended the conventions of British newspapers and, in doing so, permanently altered the shape of the tabloid press.

“Ink” will have its world premiere on Wednesday 2nd September in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema on the Lido di Venezia, opening this year’s edition of one of the world’s most prestigious film festivals. Its selection as opening film places Boyle and Graham’s take on the Murdoch story at the centre of a festival long regarded as a key launchpad for awards-season contenders.