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US actor Julia Roberts delves into the rarefied world of academia in her latest film, After the Hunt, denying that its ambiguous handling of a campus sexual assault allegation was politically incorrect.

Directed by Italy’s Luca Guadagnino and also starring Ayo Edebiri and Andrew Garfield, the movie is premiering on Friday at the Venice Film Festival, bringing Roberts to the Lido’s famed red carpet for the first time in her career.

Roberts plays Alma Olsson, a Yale philosophy professor whose life is upended when her longtime friend and colleague is accused by one of her favourite students of sexual assault. The drama probes how supposedly liberal academics wrestle with questions of loyalty, power and identity when confronted with generational fault lines.

Speaking to reporters ahead of the opening, Roberts pushed back on suggestions the film risked echoing cultural patterns that cast suspicion on survivors, particularly Black women, while preserving ambiguity around males accused of assault.

“We’re not making statements, we are portraying these people in these moments of time,” Roberts said.

The Hollywood star, who won an Oscar in 2001 for Erin Brockovich, said she relished the chance to play a conflicted, compromised character, like Olsson, who is addicted to painkillers and struggles to respond to the assault allegation.

“Trouble is where the juicy stuff is, right? … It’s like dominoes of conflict. Once one falls, suddenly, everywhere you turn, there’s some new piece of challenge. And that’s what makes it worth getting up and going to work in the morning,” she said.

Guadagnino said the film was about the collision of competing perspectives rather than offering a clear moral verdict. “Everyone has their own truth. It’s not that one truth is more important than another,” he said. He added that he also saw the film as a portrayal of the pursuit of power, with Roberts’s character seeking career advancement within the politically fraught atmosphere of Yale.

“When I see the ambition of wanting something beyond other people, I’m quite interested, because it’s a damnation,” Guadagnino said, adding he just wanted “tranquillity”.

His work ethic is anything but tranquil as he continues to pump out big-name pictures at the rate of almost one a year. Last year, he presented Queer with Daniel Craig at Venice and in 2022, he showcased Bones & All with Timothée Chalamet at the Lido. His film Challengers had been scheduled to open the 2023 festival, but was withdrawn during the actors’ strike.

After the Hunt is playing out of competition at Venice, meaning it is not in the running for the prestigious Golden Lion award, which will be handed out on September 6.