Venice Spotlights 4- to 7-Hour Documentaries as Streaming Eases Pressure to Cut
Updated
Updated · Vulture · Sep 10
Venice Spotlights 4- to 7-Hour Documentaries as Streaming Eases Pressure to Cut
2 articles · Updated · Vulture · Sep 10
Summary
Four-hour "Musk," nearly six-hour "My Undesirable Friends: Part II — Exile" and seven-hour "Joie de Vivre" have turned ultralong documentaries into a defining feature of this year’s Venice lineup.
Streaming is a key driver: with the theatrical documentary market drying up, directors face less pressure to trim films toward two hours when releases are headed to HBO Max or Mubi.
"Musk" uses its runtime for breadth—tracing Elon Musk’s rise and adding a 10-minute intermission—while also drawing notice for an AI-voiced CGI Musk that Alex Gibney called "intentionally ironic."
"My Undesirable Friends" uses length for immersion, following anti-Putin journalists over four years after exile from Russia, with Venice’s cramped screening rooms creating more strain than the nearly six-hour runtime.
The trend suggests prestige festivals are increasingly serving as launchpads for documentary projects that can function as streaming series as easily as theatrical films.