Sexuality trouble, one might say, to paraphrase the "gender trouble" theory of American philosopher Judith Butler: For pleasure, the exploration of other relationships to the body, as well as the desire to break taboos have fueled a number of scenarios throughout this Venice Film Festival, which comes to a close on Saturday, September 7, with the presentation of the Golden Lion and other awards. Will the jury, chaired by Isabelle Huppert, be tuned into these new love conversations, or will it prefer to devote its attention to works that are more connected to current political issues, notably racism and the far right, other key themes of this year's festival?

The competition was sometimes laborious, with few excellent films, and film lengths often exceeding two hours. The big-name works – including Maria by Pablo Larrain, The Room Next Door by Pedro Almodovar, The Joker: Folie à deux by Todd Phillips, Queer by Luca Guadagnino – were generally disappointing. Eventually, it was the lesser-identified filmmakers, particularly female directors, who emerged. Or at least a handful, since only six of the 21 films competing for the Golden Lion were directed by women.

The erotic thriller Babygirl by Dutch director Halina Reijn opened the ball, marking Nicole Kidman's return to a sultry role. The Australian actress portrays a boss who enters into a submissive sexual relationship with a young trainee. A film of meticulous suspense, it examines buried desires and explodes power relationships, as the big boss is not protected from having her illicit affair exposed within the company. Although Babygirl is a landmark in the cinema of the post-#MeToo era, it doesn't stab women in the back. On the contrary, it acts as a form of resistance: to a colleague who threatens her with blackmail, Kidman's character delivers this line, which will remain a punchline of this issue: "If I want to be humiliated, I can pay someone for that."

Likewise, there is this similarly unforgettable line in Italian Giulia Louise Steigerwalt's solar Diva Futura, which revisits the rise of porn cinema in Italy in the 1980s-1990s, led by Riccardo Schicchi (1953-2012): "We're amoral, not immoral," explains the photographer and director (played by Pietro Castellitto), who defends sex films as an art and an achievement of free love – one of the actresses, Ilona Staller, would enter Italian parliament under the name of "Cicciolina". But the "peace and love" imagery of porn was to fade with the industrialization of X and the exploitation of actors and actresses. On the program: fire and melancholy.

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