Luca Guadagnino’s new film After the Hunt starring Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri and Andrew Garfield features themes and character conflicts that speak to the #MeToo movement. So what was the Italian filmmaker trying to say by using opening credits inspired by the films of Woody Allen?
That’s one of the questions Guadagnino fielded during the film’s official press conference at the Venice Film Festival on Friday (courtesy of IndieWire’s Ryan Lattanzio).
“The crass answer would be, why not?” Guadagnino answered before a more lengthy take. “When I started thinking about this movie with my collaborators in front of the camera and behind the camera — Malik Hassan Sayeed, director of photography, Stefano Baisi on production design and Giulia Piersanti [on costume design] — we couldn’t stop thinking of [Woody Allen films] Crimes and Misdemeanors, Another Woman or even Hannah and Her Sisters. And there was an infrastructure to the story that felt very linked to the great oeuvre of Woody Allen between 1985 and 1991.”
Guadagnino said he’s played with the style of credits “a few times before this” in his earlier work. But, because his film After the Hunt features plot points about assault and misconduct, it also made sense considering Allen’s history of facing sexual misconduct allegations from his adopted daughter.
“I felt it was also sort an interesting nod to thinking of an artist who has been, in a way, facing some sort of problems about his being, and what is our responsibility in looking at the work of an artist that we love, like Woody Allen,” Guadagnino continued. “And, by the way, it’s a classic, that kind of font. I just want to conclude it’s such a classic that it goes beyond Woody Allen.”
After the Hunt is described as psychological drama about college professor Alma Imhoff (Roberts) who finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when star student Maggie (Ayo Edebiri) accuses her colleague Hank (Garfield) of assault. As events unfold, a dark secret from the professor’s past threatens to be revealed. Guadagnino directed from a script by Nora Garrett.
Guadagnino, Roberts, Edebiri and Garfield in Venice on Aug. 29, 2025.
(Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)
Guadagnino said he was “very much impressed” by Garrett’s script when he received it, and it came to him at the perfect time because he was having the same sort of conversations with himself about power. “What do we want when we are looking for power? Why do we want power? Why do we fight over getting power in our hands and taking it off other people’s hands?” Guadagnino mused.
Earlier in the press conference, he said another reason he was drawn to the material is because of how it addresses truth. “Everyone has their own truths. It’s not that one truth is more important than the other. It’s how we see the clash of truths and what is the boundary of these truths together.”
After the Hunt team has its world premiere Friday evening here on the Lido inside Sala Grande, while Amazon MGM Studios will release the film on Oct. 17. The 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival runs Aug. 27-Sept. 6.
