How Venice Film Festival is ensuring that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie don’t cross paths

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are both attending this year’s Venice Film Festival, but its artistic director Alberto Barbera has said there’s “no way” the former couple will meet as their contentious divorce proceedings continue to rumble on.

Pitt, 60, and Jolie, 49, married at their French winery Château Miraval in August 2014. Jolie filed for divorce in September 2016 and they were declared legally single by a judge in 2019.

However, their divorce is yet to be finalized due to fights over custody of their children, division of their assets and ownership of the winery.

The Venice Film Festival got underway on August 28 and concludes on September 7. Jolie’s new film Maria, directed by Pablo Larraín, screens first while Pitt’s Wolfs, co-starring George Clooney and directed by Jon Watts, appears later in the schedule.

Barbera told Vanity Fair: “Angelina will be on the first day, on Thursday 29, and she will leave right after with Pablo Larraín to go to Telluride. Brad will arrive only on Saturday, to Venice.”

Barbera added: “There is no way that they can cross each other at the Lido.”

Jolie is playing renowned American-Greek soprano Maria Callas in Larraín’s film while Wolfs follows two lone-wolf fixers who are assigned to the same job.

Last month, Jolie asked Pitt via her lawyer to drop a lawsuit against her.

The couple have been embroiled in litigation since 2021 when Pitt sued Jolie for “secretly” selling her shares in Château Miraval.

Jolie’s legal team has said the Girl, Interrupted star wants Pitt to withdraw his lawsuit so the years-long dispute can be brought to a close, adding she will be forced to continue to defend herself in court unless he does so.

“While Angelina again asks Mr. Pitt to end the fighting and finally put their family on a clear path toward healing, unless Mr. Pitt withdraws his lawsuit, Angelina has no choice but to obtain the evidence necessary to prove his allegations wrong,” Paul Murphy said in a statement.

In May, a Los Angeles judge ruled Jolie would have to submit eight years’ worth of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) as part of the ongoing legal battle.

Murphy commented: “Mr. Pitt has control of all the properties the couple shared as well as control of the business, but still he demands more, and is suing Angelina for $67 million plus punitive damages. In doing so, Pitt placed squarely at issue why he tried to punish and control Angelina by demanding a newly expanded NDA.”

The winery dispute is on top of Jolie’s ongoing abuse allegations against Pitt, who is said to have filed for divorce after an incident on a September 2016 private flight from France to Los Angeles. The court filings, which were obtained by The New York Times, claimed that Pitt “choked one of the children and struck another in the face” and “grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her”.

The filing also states that, at one point, “he poured beer on Jolie; at another, he poured beer and red wine on the children”.

Earlier this year, Jolie’s lawyers claimed that “Pitt’s history of physical abuse of Jolie started well before the family’s September 2016 plane trip”, but noted that the flight “marked the first time he turned his physical abuse on the children as well”, causing the Salt star to leave the relationship immediately.

Pitt vehemently denied the claims at the time, and he was never charged following an investigation into allegations of abuse on the 2016 flight.