Venice Film Festival turns 75
2007-08-29 14:00
Colleen Barry
Venice - The Venice Film Festival opens its 75th anniversary edition on Wednesday with an all-world premiere competition for the coveted Golden Lion and a cascade of stars including George Clooney, Keira Knightley and Woody Allen.
In their constant search for new talent and cinematic trends, the organisers of the world's oldest running film festival reached out to young directors this year.
Opening the 11-day festival is Atonement, the screen adaptation of Ian McEwan's best-selling novel starring Knightley and James McAvoy and directed by 35-year-old Joe Wright.
Venice closes September 8 with the Hong Kong-Taiwanese gangster-thriller Blood Brothers by first-time director Alexi Tan.
But some Venice veterans will be making a return, including Oscar-winning director Ang Lee, who, two years after previewing Brokeback Mountain at the Lido returns with Lust, Caution, a Chinese-language spy-thriller set in World War II.
Controversy
Venice always courts controversy, and this year it centred around the organisers' notation of Lee's film as originating from Taiwan, China. Taiwan complained that the label suggests the self-ruled island is part of mainland China.
China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, but Beijing still considers self-ruled Taiwan as its territory and has threatened to retake it by force. Taiwanese officials blamed China for the notation.
The film festival press office told The Associated Press that they list the countries as given by the production house.
This year's line-up boasts some of the most eagerly anticipated new films of the fall film season - many making their world premieres at the Lido.
More than 90 percent of the 57 featured films and all of the 22 films competing for the Golden Lion are premiers.
Under director Marco Mueller, who took over four years ago, the festival also has earned a reputation for spawning major award contenders: Films launched at Venice over the last three years have garnered 51 Oscar nominations.
This year's selection are heavily weighted toward Anglo-American productions with an unprecedented seven English-language films.
Politics and war
Mueller has been criticised for being under Hollywood's sway, but he has said that some of the strongest films were emerging from the English-language world, often grappling with the issue of politics and war.
The theme is expressed in Brian De Palma's oddly titled Redacted, a series of stories about US soldiers in Iraq, and Paul Haggis' In the Valley of Elah, which tells the tale of an Iraq war veteran gone missing after his return from a tour of duty.
Also vying for the top prize at Venice are Michael Clayton, starring George Clooney in a legal drama about a corporate firm battling a class-action lawsuit, and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, starring Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck and Sam Shepherd.
Woody Allen premieres his Cassandra's Dream, which is showing out of competition. Starring Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell, it tells the story of two brothers - one a chronic gambler and another in love with a beautiful actress - who try to improve their lives and become entangled in a sinister situation.
Kenneth Branagh is presenting a remake of the 1972 film Sleuth, with Michael Caine appearing this time as a wealthy writer engaged in a battle of wits with a young actor having an affair with his wife. Jude Law reprises Caine's 1972 role as the younger man.
Italian Spaghetti Western
Asia is as always well-represented in Venice, with four movies in the main competition. Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike will be showing his Sukiyaki Western Django, a Japanese interpretation of the Italian Spaghetti Western of the 1960s and 1970s starring Quentin Tarantino - a complement to the Spaghetti Western retrospective being held on the festival sidelines.
American director Tim Burton will be presented with a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement by Johnny Depp, who started in such Burton creations as Edward Scissorhands.
While the Venice festival celebrates its 75th anniversary, it is the 64th edition of the festival, which was periodically cancelled due to war and other reasons.
The Golden Lion will be presented in a gala ceremony on September 8.
- AP