Spencer, telling the story of Diana and Charles’s bitter divorce, will battle for the Golden Lion in September alongside the latest by Pedro Almodóvar.

The story of Diana, Princess of Wales’s agonies over divorcing Prince Charles will do battle with an adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s The Lost Daughter and The Power of the Dog, Jane Campion’s long-awaited return to the big screen, for the Golden Lion at the Venice film festival.

Diana’s marital problems is the focus of Spencer, the drama starring Kristen Stewart and set during a Christmas weekend at Sandringham.

It is directed by Pablo Larraín, the Chilean film-maker who won multiple plaudits for Jackie, the 2016 biopic of Jacqueline Onassis starring Natalie Portman.

The Lost Daughter is adapted from Ferrante’s 2006 novel about a college professor whose childhood trauma is unlocked when she meets a younger mother and daughter on a beach; it stars Olivia Colman and is the directorial debut of actor Maggie Gyllenhaal.

The Power of the Dog is Campion’s first completed feature film for 12 years, since 2009’s Bright Star; it is an adaptation of the 1967 novel by Thomas Savage and stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Kirsten Dunst.

In competing for the festival’s top prize, they will join Pedro Almodóvar’s new film Parallel Mothers, starring his regular collaborator Penélope Cruz, which was previously announced as the festival’s opening gala.

Other strong names in the competition lineup include Paolo Sorrentino, with a loosely autobiographical drama called The Hand of God, gambling drama The Card Counter from Paul Schrader and New Orleans-set Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon from Ana Lily Amirpour.

Venice will also see screenings of high-profile international films that aren’t in competition for the Golden Lion; these include the world premieres of the big budget adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune, starring Timothée Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson and directed by Denis Villeneuve, and Halloween Kills, the 12th in the long-running horror franchise, starring Jamie Lee Curtis (who is being awarded a lifetime achievement Golden Lion).

Adding to the star power on the Venice Lido will be showings of The Last Duel, the medieval set chivalric romance directed by Ridley Scott, and Edgar Wright’s much anticipated horror-thriller Last Night in Soho, starring Anya Taylor-Joy.

The Venice film festival is due to open on 1 September, and run until 11 September.

Parallel Mothers (dir: Pedro Almodóvar) – opening film

The Lost Daughter (dir: Maggie Gyllenhaal)

Out of Competition – fiction

Out of Competition – nonfiction

Out of Competition – TV series

Les Promesses (dir: Thomas Kruithof) – opening film

Land of Dreams (dir: Shirin Nest, Shoja Azari) – opening film