Nicole Kidman's 'Babygirl' gets standing ovation at Venice Film Festival

VENICE: After almost two decades, Hollywood star Nicole Kidman returned to the Venice Film Festival. Her film 'Babygirl' premiered at the festival, where it garnered a seven-minute-plus standing ovation from the Sala Grande audience, Deadline reported.

Kidman was joined at the premiere by fellow cast members Harris Dickinson, Antonio Banderas and Sophie Wilde, as well as filmmaker Halina Reijn. 'Babygirl' centers on Kidman, who played a high-powered CEO who puts her family and work on the line when she begins a torrid affair with her much younger intern.

The A24 will next take the film to TIFF before releasing the film in the US on Christmas Day. Kidman told the Venice press corps that making the movie with Reijn had been a "freeing" experience.

The film, she said, is "obviously, yes, about sex," but it's also about "desire, it's about your inner thoughts, it's about secrets, it's about marriage, it's about truth, power, consent... This is one woman's story, and I hope a very liberating story. It's told by a woman through her gaze... and that's to me what made it so unique was that suddenly I was going to be in the hands of a woman with this material and it was very deep to share those things and very freeing."

She attended the premiere in a Schiaparelli Couture fall 2024 design featuring a lace-up, corset bodice with a structured waist, sequin fringe and intricate beading.