71st Venice Film Festival opens
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E-mail CNTV, August 28, 2014
The 71st Venice Film Festival opens on Wednesday, bringing 11 days of high art and Hollywood glamour to the city. Twenty films are competing for the coveted Golden Lion prize - 19 of them world premieres. Let's take a look at the event, which mixes adventurous fare with mainstream movies seeking awards-season momentum.
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This year's Venice Film Festival opens with the world premiere of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's twisted comedy "Birdman". |
This year's Venice Film Festival opens with the world premiere of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's twisted comedy "Birdman".
Anticipation is high for a film that promises to mix the bold, surrealism-tinged sensibility of Inarritu with inspired casting - former "Batman" star Michael Keaton plays a past-his-prime actor struggling to move beyond his best-known role as an iconic action hero. Edward Norton, Emma Stone and Naomi Watts also star.
"Last year we opened the festival with "Gravity" which was, as you know, a huge success all over the world and this of course helped us a lot to deal with the studios and this year we succeeded to get "Birdman" for the opening which is a highly expected film," Artistic Director Alberto Barbera said.
As well as "Birdman", 19 other films are in the main competition, including "Manglehorn", starring Al Pacino, "Good Kill" with Ethan Hawke as a disillusioned military drone pilot, and Fatih Akin's "The Cut" with Tahar Rahim.
Abel Ferrara's biopic "Pasolini" and Iranian director Rakhshan Bani-Etemad's "Tales" will also be vying for the coveted Golden Lion.
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Director of the movie "Dearest" Peter Ho-Sun Chan and its cast Zhao Wei pose on the red carpet during the "Birdman" premiere and the opening ceremony of the 71st Venice International Film Festival on the Lido island of Venice, Italy, Aug. 27, 2014. |
"There are a number of films that we have been waiting for, the Fatih Akin film from Germany and Turkey is something that many people have been wondering about, was it rejected from Cannes, was it not? Why is it here? Does it belong to be here? Probably it does, he is a director that engages a lot of people on a both the arthouse level but also the public likes him often enough," Film critic Jay Weissberg said.
But the festival certainly won't be lacking star-power, either.
"So, whoever the big American actors are - Emma Stone, Naomi Watts, Michael Keaton, perhaps. But as always, Al Pacino has two films that are here. These are people who engage the public and we'll see what the films are like," Jay Weissberg said.
Like its rival Cannes, the Venice Film Festival embraces actors and directors who are adventurous, unpredictable or down-right ornery.
This year the festival is honoring James Franco, presenting the prolific American actor-director with the heroically titled "Glory to the Filmmaker Prize."
Franco will also premiere "The Sound and the Fury," his second adaptation of a William Faulkner novel, at an out-of-competition festival screening.
The Festival runs through until September 6th, when this year's winners will be announced.
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