Armani Beauty Sets Up the Giorgio Armani Cinema Club at 2025 Venice Film Festival

MILAN – Armani beauty is taking its long-standing affiliation with the Venice Film Festival to the next level.

The brand, which will be the event’s official beauty sponsor for its eighth consecutive year, is upping the number of activations for the upcoming edition, which is slated to kick off Wednesday and run through Sept. 6.

“Our presence here is a profound statement of cultural influence, a testament to Giorgio Armani‘s deep and continuing dialogue with cinema,” said Richard Pinabel, global president of Armani beauty, which is licensed to L’Oréal. 

“Cinema has always been at the core of our identity. What we do in Venice is not simply about presence — it is about creating spaces that honor artistic expression and amplify the dialogue between beauty and film,” continued Pinabel, highlighting that “this edition of the Venice Film Festival gains particular significance as it coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Giorgio Armani maison.”

To mark the occasion, Armani beauty is taking over the Venice Venice Hotel to set up the Giorgio Armani Cinema Club, a new format that aims to become a hub celebrating the seventh art, fashion, glamour and beauty for two weeks. From the branded facade to interiors revisited as a movie theater, the space intends to offer a gathering point for actors, friends of the brand and influencers to meet, relax and discuss movies during the event, as well as become Armani beauty’s epicenter of content creation.

Along with long-standing Armani beauty ambassadors such as Cate Blanchett, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Sadie Sink, Nathalie Emmanuel and Madisin Rian, actors spanning from Sofia Carson to Shailene Woodley and Riley Keough are expected to attend the curated program staged at the venue in-between their red carpet appearances.

The schedule will range from a dinner al fresco on the opening night of the festival, following the world premiere of “La Grazia,” the new movie directed by Academy Award-winning director Paolo Sorrentino, to a deep-dive into artistry the next day via a masterclass with Armani beauty’s global makeup artist Hiromi Ueda, among others. 

The hotel will also be the stage for the production of behind-the-scenes videos realized with a cinematic approach, which will be shared on the brand’s social media. These will add to content Armani beauty will develop in partnership with Variety, including the “Movie Night” series of episodes each starring two actors in an intimate conversation about film, beauty and storytelling. Pairings will include Sink with Molly Gordon, Carson with Emmanuel and young Spanish actors Julio Peña Fernández and Clara Galle.

The experience will culminate on Friday, when Armani beauty will host a dinner at Venice’s landmark Palazzo Ducale, or Doge’s Palace, a masterpiece of Gothic architecture that stands in the central Piazza San Marco square, adjacent to the iconic Basilica and with a wing overlooking the lagoon.

The following night, it will be the turn of the brand’s fashion arm to stage a soirée at the Arsenale location to coincide with the launch of Armani/Archivio, a new platform dedicated to all Giorgio Armani collections to date. As reported, the digital project — which will have a physical outpost outside Milan in the near future — is to be launched in the lead-up to the 50^th anniversary’s big celebrations that will include an exhibition opening at the Pinacoteca di Brera Museum in Milan on Sept. 24 and the Giorgio Armani spring 2026 runway show scheduled on Sept. 28.

Earlier this year the fashion house also unveiled the “Giorgio Armani Privé 2005-2025, Twenty Years of Haute Couture” exhibit at its Armani/Silos space in Milan to mark the milestone for the designer’s Privé line. Running through Dec. 28, the showcase gathers more than 150 couture looks, including some custom-made Privé gowns seen on international red carpets through the years. These range from the Swarovski crystal mesh number worn by Blanchett at the 2007 Academy Awards to the custom champagne silk gown Demi Moore wore to scoop up her first Golden Globes award earlier this year.

Beyond memorable red carpet moments, Armani’s ties with the world of cinema trace back to 1980, when the designer created the wardrobe for Richard Gere in the “American Gigolo” movie. Ever since, Armani has collaborated on more than a hundred films, ranging from “The Untouchables” and “Gattaca” to “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Don’t Look Up,” to cite a few.

The brand has strengthened such a bond with its beauty line through different projects. In Venice, Armani beauty also supports and presents the “Audience Award” in the “Spotlight” competitive section dedicated to new cinematic voices and where the public is to select the best movie. 

“In the Spotlight” is also the name of an Armani beauty activation concept that, after debuting at the Berlin Film Festival in February drawing the likes of Emmanuel, Rian and Sydney Sweeney, it is gearing up to debut in Shanghai’s West Bund in partnership with Vogue Film next month.

“Our mission is to be present wherever stories are told on screen,” said Pinabel. “Cinema is universal— it speaks to all audiences, across all borders. That is why Armani will always be in the spotlight, all year long.” 

Other film events Armani beauty partners with include Romania’s Transilvania International Film Festival; the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in Czech Republic; the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain, and, starting from this year, the Melbourne International Film Festival and Mexico’s Morelia International Film Festival.

As for the Venice one, the 2025 edition promises to serve big fashion moments. As reported, a Sofia Coppola documentary on Marc Jacobs will be unveiled on Sept. 2 as part of the out-of-competition section, adding to much-anticipated movie premieres that are expected to draw the likes of Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Al Pacino, Jacob Elordi, Idris Elba, Emma Stone, Emily Blunt, Laura Dern, Adam Driver, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield and Chloë Sevigny to the Italian red carpet.