 The Venice Film Festival starts with usual Hollywood glamor
The Venice Film Festival has started on Wednesday night with the premiere of the Coen brothers' dark comedy "Burn After Reading," thereby showing a flash of Hollywood glamor.
There are twenty one films that would compete for the coveted Golden Lion at the festival will provide a snapshot of world cinema, with entries from various foreign countries like Ethiopia, Turkey, Algeria and a Brazilian-Chinese production.
Although the lineup gives the impression of being light on celebrity-driven Hollywood fare due to last year's writers' strike and also a late selection process for Cannes' springtime festival , Marco Mueller , the festival director, claims that all the film of United States are well represented.
"This is the second time — and it is a record for the history of the festival — we have five American films in competition," added Mueller emphasizing the fact that selections are not done on the basis of any national criteria. "The festival is not an atlas of nations."
German filmmaker Wim Wenders, whose credits include "Paris, Texas" and "Buena Vista Social Club," has been selected as the head of the jury this year.
"We will see 21 films and I hope — and I have a lot of confidence in Marco — that we will see 21 films that will give us the state of art of what is cinema today," commented Wenders. |