Kathryn Bigelow unveils nuclear thriller ‘A House of Dynamite’ at Venice Film Festival

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Kathryn Bigelow was interested in the U.S. nuclear stockpile: Who was guarding it? What would happen if a missile strike was imminent? And who would be making the decisions about what to do?

Her new film “A House of Dynamite” takes audiences into those guarded rooms as U.S. government officials and military leaders attempt to manage a missile strike from an unknown aggressor that is 20 minutes from impact. It had its world premiere on Tuesday evening at the Venice Film Festival, where it was given an 11-minute standing ovation.

“This is a global issue,” Bigelow said before the premiere. “We are really living in a house of dynamite. My interest was to really get that information out there.”

Bigelow worked alongside screenwriter and the former president of NBC News, Noah Oppenheim, to craft an authentic portrait of what might transpire in those 20 minutes.

“One of the many things that makes Kathryn such an extraordinary filmmaker is her commitment to authenticity,” Oppenheim said. “From the very beginning her mandate was, ‘lets find out how this would really work, let’s take people into these rooms where these decisions would be made and show how it would actually unfold.”

It helped that Oppenheim had covered the subject for decades as a journalist, and that he had his own arsenal of contacts who could help inform the story, including former Pentagon, White House and CIA officials.

The film boasts a large ensemble cast, with Idris Elba as the U.S. President, Jared Harris as the Secretary of Defense, Tracy Letts as a general and Gabriel Basso as the deputy national security advisor.

These are not just suits in situation rooms, either. The audience gets glimpses into their lives outside of work too. One person is running late, another is worried about a sick kid, and they're all dealing with the extreme stress of the quickly unfolding situation.

"The movie could be performed as purely procedural, and we simply see people doing their jobs and nothing but their jobs. But the truth is, they’re human beings performing these functions so humanity seeps out,” Letts said. “I really think that’s part of the beauty and strength of the film, reminding that ultimately these are human beings making these decisions.”

The story is not meant to be a precise portrait of any specific geopolitical moment, or administration, however.

“The point is no matter what’s going on in the world, and the world is always unstable in some way or another, we’ve constructed this weaponry that could end all life,” Oppenheim said. “In countries like ours, one individual, the president, has the sole authority to authorize their use. We wanted to tell a story about that system, which is not really a reflection of any partisan, political situation, it’s just the reality of the nuclear age.”

“A House of Dynamite” is Bigelow’s first film since the 2017 release of “Detroit.” Her most acclaimed films have been politically themed, from “The Hurt Locker,” for which she became the first woman to win the best director Oscar, to “Zero Dark Thirty.” In some ways, “A House of Dynamite” is a kind of natural counterpart to those.

Her hope is that the film inspires a conversation about nuclear weapons and non-proliferation — “if we want to survive, which I can only assume we do,” Bigelow said.

The film will be released in theaters on Oct. 10 before streaming on Oct. 24.

“A House of Dynamite” is one of three Netflix films playing in competition, alongside Guillermo del Toro’s classically gothic “Frankenstein” and Noah Baumbach’s Hollywood drama “Jay Kelly.” The streamer still doesn't have a best picture win to its name, and Venice has proved itself to be a solid launching pad for awards hopefuls.

The Venice awards, which will be decided on by the Alexander Payne-led jury, will be handed out at the close of the festival on Sept. 6.

For more coverage of the 2025 Venice Film Festival, visit https://apnews.com/hub/venice-film-festival

Tracy Letts poses for photographers at the red carpet for the film 'A House of Dynamite' during the 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025. (Photo by Alessandra Tarantino/Invision/AP)

Director Kathryn Bigelow poses for photographers at the red carpet for the film 'A House of Dynamite' during the 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

Idris Elba poses for photographers at the red carpet for the film 'A House of Dynamite' during the 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

Director Kathryn Bigelow poses for photographers at the red carpet for the film 'A House of Dynamite' during the 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

Tracy Letts, from left, Greta Lee, Idris Elba, director Kathryn Bigelow, Rebecca Ferguson, Anthony Ramos, Gabriel Basso and Jared Harris pose for photographers at the photo call for the film 'A House of Dynamite' during the 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

Jared Harris poses for photographers at the photo call for the film 'A House of Dynamite' during the 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

Tracy Letts poses for photographers at the photo call for the film 'A House of Dynamite' during the 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

Idris Elba poses for photographers at the photo call for the film 'A House of Dynamite' during the 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

Director Kathryn Bigelow poses for photographers at the photo call for the film 'A House of Dynamite' during the 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

Film posters outside the Excelsior hotel ahead of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025. (Photo by Alessandra Tarantino/Invision/AP)

A view of the main cinema ahead of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025. (Photo by Alessandra Tarantino/Invision/AP)

NUUK, Greenland (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump has turned the Arctic island of Greenland into a geopolitical hotspot with his demands to own it and suggestions that the U.S. could take it by force.

The island is a semiautonomous region of Denmark, and Denmark's foreign minister said Wednesday after a meeting at the White House that a “ fundamental disagreement ” remains with Trump over the island.

The crisis is dominating the lives of Greenlanders and "people are not sleeping, children are afraid, and it just fills everything these days. And we can’t really understand it,” Naaja Nathanielsen, a Greenlandic minister said at a meeting with lawmakers in Britain’s Parliament this week.

Here's a look at what Greenlanders have been saying:

Trump has dismissed Denmark’s defenses in Greenland, suggesting it’s “two dog sleds.”

By saying that, Trump is “undermining us as a people,” Mari Laursen told AP.

Laursen said she used to work on a fishing trawler but is now studying law. She approached AP to say she thought previous examples of cooperation between Greenlanders and Americans are “often overlooked when Trump talks about dog sleds.”

She said during World War II, Greenlandic hunters on their dog sleds worked in conjunction with the U.S. military to detect Nazi German forces on the island.

“The Arctic climate and environment is so different from maybe what they (Americans) are used to with the warships and helicopters and tanks. A dog sled is more efficient. It can go where no warship and helicopter can go,” Laursen said.

Trump has repeatedly claimed Russian and Chinese ships are swarming the seas around Greenland. Plenty of Greenlanders who spoke to AP dismissed that claim.

“I think he (Trump) should mind his own business,” said Lars Vintner, a heating engineer.

“What's he going to do with Greenland? He speaks of Russians and Chinese and everything in Greenlandic waters or in our country. We are only 57,000 people. The only Chinese I see is when I go to the fast food market. And every summer we go sailing and we go hunting and I never saw Russian or Chinese ships here in Greenland,” he said.

Down at Nuuk's small harbor, Gerth Josefsen spoke to AP as he attached small fish as bait to his lines. He said, “I don't see them (the ships)” and said he had only seen “a Russian fishing boat ten years ago.”

Maya Martinsen, 21, a shop worker, told AP she doesn't believe Trump wants Greenland to enhance America's security.

“I know it’s not national security. I think it’s for the oils and minerals that we have that are untouched,” she said, suggesting the Americans are treating her home like a “business trade.”

She said she thought it was good that American, Greenlandic and Danish officials met in the White House Wednesday and said she believes that “the Danish and Greenlandic people are mostly on the same side,” despite some Greenlanders wanting independence.

“It is nerve-wrecking, that the Americans aren’t changing their mind,” she said, adding that she welcomed the news that Denmark and its allies would be sending troops to Greenland because “it’s important that the people we work closest with, that they send support.”

Tuuta Mikaelsen, a 22-year-old student, told AP that she hopes the U.S. got the message from Danish and Greenlandic officials to “back off.”

She said she didn't want to join the United States because in Greenland “there are laws and stuff, and health insurance .. .we can go to the doctors and nurses ... we don’t have to pay anything,” she said adding "I don’t want the U.S. to take that away from us.”

In Greenland's parliament, Juno Berthelsen, MP for the Naleraq opposition party that campaigns for independence in the Greenlandic parliament told AP that he has done multiple media interviews every day for the last two weeks.

When asked by AP what he would say to Trump and Vice President JD Vance if he had the chance, Berthelsen said:

“I would tell them, of course, that — as we’ve seen — a lot of Republicans as well as Democrats are not in favor of having such an aggressive rhetoric and talk about military intervention, invasion. So we would tell them to move beyond that and continue this diplomatic dialogue and making sure that the Greenlandic people are the ones who are at the very center of this conversation.”

“It is our country,” he said. “Greenland belongs to the Greenlandic people.”

Kwiyeon Ha and Evgeniy Maloletka contributed to this report.

FILE - A woman pushes a stroller with her children in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)

Military vessel HDMS Knud Rasmussen of the Royal Danish Navy patrols near Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Juno Berthelsen, MP for the Naleraq opposition party that campaigns for independence in the Greenlandic parliament poses for photo at his office in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Fisherman Gerth Josefsen prepares fishing lines at the harbour of Nuuk, Greenland, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A woman walks on a street past a Greenlandic national flag in Nuuk, Greenland, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)