- Title: FILM FESTIVAL-VENICE Venice film festival reveals star-studded line-up
- Date: 29th July 2015
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- Embargoed: 13th August 2015 13:00
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- Topics: General
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- Story Text: The Venice Film Festival on Wednesday (July 29) revealed a star-studded line-up which organisers said aims to offer something for everyone.
The festival's artistic director Alberto Barbera and Venice Biennale president Paolo Baratta held a news conference in Rome to announce a line-up which includes 21 competition films, 16 films screening out of competition and 18 movies in the sidebar Orizzonti section.
Films vying for the coveted Golden Lion award this year include several from the U.S., such as Charlie Kaufman's animation "Anomalisa", Cary Fukunaga's "Beasts of No Nation" starring Idris Elba, and "Equals" by Drake Doremus with Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult.
Big-name movies from other countries in competition include Luca Guadagnino's "A Bigger Splash" starring Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes and Dakota Johnson, Tom Hooper's "The Danish Girl" with Eddie Redmayne and Piero Messina's "L'attesa" starring Juliette Binoche. The competition section also includes auteur movies including the latest offerings from Russia's Aleksandr Sokurov and Israeli director Amos Gitai.
"The programme is very varied, I think. Yes, if there is something that characterises it, it is its extreme diversity. The line-up goes from small films which are almost experimental to documentaries and great auteur films as well as great films which seek to innovate the forms used in contemporary cinema. There are also the great Hollywood films which in some ways continue that tradition of spectacle that we all love and which the great audiences in some way prefer. All in all, there's a bit of everything," Barbera told reporters.
The line-up for the Out of Competition is notably A-list. "Go With Me" stars Anhthony Hopkins, Julia Stiles and Ray Liotta, while Johnny Depp leads Scott Cooper's gangster drama "Black Mass", and Michael Keaton returns to the Lido with Thomas McCarthy's "Spotlight" in which he co-stars with Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams.
Martin Scorsese's 16-minute "The Audition" which stars Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, as well as a cameo by Brad Pitt, and was shot as a publicity feature for a Macau casino, is also slated to be screened Out of Competition.
Barbera, however, was quick to point out the selection had not been made with markets or numbers in mind.
"This is a festival which doesn't in any want to go against what the markets want but nor does it bow to market pressures and expectations. I'm saying this because this is the issue that keeps coming up, that the films that have been selected have little hope of being released in the cinemas, or that there are films that are awarded but have little support from the public, or great premieres or films which are ignored by the juries but then awarded by the audiences in the cinemas, these are old discussions but they keep resurfacing," he said.
The film "Everest", based on the real-life 1996 disaster in which eight people died in a blizzard on the world's highest mountain, will have its world premiere on the opening day of the 72nd Venice Film Festival on September 2, 2015.
Jason Clarke, Sam Worthington, Keira Knightley, Emily Watson and Jake Gyllenhaal make up the ensemble cast directed by Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur. The film was shot on location in Nepal and in the Italian Alps. It will be released in the United States in IMAX theatres in 3D on September 18 before receiving a wide release on September 25.
Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron, known for "Gravity", will head the Venice jury, which includes Hollywood actress Elizabeth Banks and director Pawel Pawlikowski.
The festival runs September 2-12. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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