Kathryn Bigelow spotlights nuclear threat at Venice

Film director Kathryn Bigelow launched her latest movie, A House of Dynamite, at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday, saying she hoped the tense thriller would sound the alarm over the ever-present danger of nuclear catastrophe. Her first film in eight years traces the launch of a lone, unidentified ballistic missile towards the US, triggering a desperate race to find out, who is responsible and how to respond.

“This is a global issue, like where we are with nuclear weapons,” said Bigelow, who in 2010 became the first woman to receive the best director Oscar for her Iraq war movie, The Hurt Locker. “Of course, hope against hope, maybe we reduce the nuclear stockpile someday, but in the meantime we are really living in a house of dynamite,” she said at a press conference, alongside some of her stars, including Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson.

“How is annihilating the world a good defensive measure?” The film tracks the 18 minutes it takes for the missile to be launched from the Pacific until it reaches Chicago, unfolding through the eyes of myriad officials - from the US president to an anti-missile crew based in Alaska to military brass working inside US Strategic Command. “(There are) these incredibly competent people operating on an infinitesimally short timeline, and the fate of the world is at stake,” she said.

Bigelow’s last major movie was the 2017 historical crime drama, Detroit.