Hollywood stars Johnny Depp and Ralph Fiennes top a powerful line-up at this year's Venice film festival, with US and Italian films dominating the competition for the Golden Lion, from war dramas to rock-star thrillers.
Hearthrob Jake Gyllenhaal of "Brokeback Mountain" fame opens the world's oldest competition, which runs from September 2 to 12, with Baltasar Kormakur's 3D mountain thriller "Everest" from Universal, also starring Keira Knightley and Sam Worthington.
Picked to open the season with a bang, the film is based on the true story of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster and is bound to thrill as much as the 2013 festival's hit opener "Gravity" -- though it will have to fight to top the popularity of 2014's opener "Birdman".
Festival director Alberto Barbera has fought hard this year, the 72nd edition of the festival, to bring films to Venice before they head to Toronto.
His hopes will be pinned on A-lister Depp gracing the red carpet for "Black Mass", in which he plays one of the most famous US gangsters.
Director Scott Cooper's biopic depicts the true story of mobster Whitey Bulger and his attempts to take down a rival mafia family by helping out the FBI, and also stars Kevin Bacon, and Britain's Sienna Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch.
The 21 films in competition include offers from Australia, China, France, Israel, Poland, South Africa and Venezuela.
They face a jury headed by Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron, and nine jurors including actresses Diane Kruger and Elizabeth Banks, Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan and British director Lynne Ramsay.
The line-up includes "great films by auteurs, the return of great masters and many directors showing in the competition for the first time," Barbera told a press conference on Wednesday, promising "surprising, particularly innovative" flicks this year.
Rock stars and revenge
Competing for the US, director Cary Fukunaga will show child soldier drama "Beasts of No Nation," while Drake Doremus presents "Equals", a futuristic love story said to echo George Orwell's novel "1984", in which emotions have been eradicated.
All eyes will also be on stop-motion animated film "Anomalisa" written by Charlie Kaufman -- the Oscar winning screenwriter behind "Being John Malkovich" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" -- about a man who is crippled by a mundane life.
There is already a buzz about Britain's Eddie Redmayne, who stunned critics with his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in "The Theory of Everything", and his performance as one of the first people to have sex reassignment surgery in Tom Hooper's "The Danish Girl".
Michael Keaton will be back on the Venetian Lido island after his "Birdman" triumph with Tom McCarthy's "Spotlight", playing out of competition, based on the true story of the Boston Globe's investigative coverage of the Catholic child abuse scandal.
Italy is also a strong contender for the coveted Lion this year with a new horror flick from Marco Bellocchio -- whose "Dormant Beauty" competed in 2012 -- called "Blood of My Blood", about a man who is seduced by a nun and her grisly fate.
French actress Juliette Binoche will star in "The Wait" by first-timer Piero Messina, who has studied under Oscar-winner Paolo Sorrentino and appears to have picked up many of his visual tricks in his Sicily-set story about the relationship between two women.
Italian director Luca Guadagnino is also in the running with US thriller "A Bigger Splash", starring Tilda Swinton and Ralph Fiennes, about a famous rock star and a filmmaker whose lives are turned upside down by the arrival of an old friend and his daughter.
Other high-calibre international auteurs this year include Amos Gitai, Alexander Sokurov, Pablo Trapero and Atom Egoyan.
Egoyan will be presenting "Remember", a revenge drama starring Christopher Plummer, in which he plays a man who hunts down a Nazi guard who murdered his family 70 years earlier and is now living in the United States under an assumed identity.
AFP
Thu Jul 30 2015
Hollywood stars Johnny Depp top a powerful line-up at this year's Venice film festival.
Misi menamatkan kemarau Piala Thomas di Chengdu diteruskan
Menang besar atau balik, itu situasi menanti pasukan badminton lelaki negara yang berhasrat untuk mengukir nama mereka dalam sejarah.
Break the Siege Freedom: Sampai bila misi ini akan ditangguhkan?
Penangguhan sekali lagi Misi Break the Siege Freedom Flotilla to Gaza terus menimbulkan tanda tanya kepada delegasi terlibat, sampai bila ia akan ditangguhkan.
Sehingga ke saat, rakan setugas Syaff Shukri memaklumkan, belum ada sebarang keputusan daripada Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) berhubung perkara ini.
#AWANI745
#IsraelCuak
Sehingga ke saat, rakan setugas Syaff Shukri memaklumkan, belum ada sebarang keputusan daripada Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) berhubung perkara ini.
#AWANI745
#IsraelCuak
Citra MTDC - Pengukuhan struktur untuk bina ekosistem lebih dinamik
Perbadanan Pembangunan Teknologi Malaysia, MTDC meneruskan kesinambungan dalam memacu pembangunan teknologi negara, dengan melancarkan Citra MTDC, untuk mewujudkan ekosistem inovasi yang lebih dinamik.
#AWANI745
#AWANI745
348 ditahan atas pelbagai kesalahan dadah
Polis menahan 348 individu termasuk 11 wanita dalam Ops Hawk yang dijalankan di seluruh negeri ini selama tiga hari bemula Selasa.
PM Anwar pulangkan elaun Pengerusi Khazanah, tegaskan sekali lagi tidak terima gaji
Anwar berkata beliau memulangkan elaun sebagai pengerusi Khazanah Nasional Berhad yang diterimanya dan sekali lagi menegaskan tidak menerima gaji bagi jawatan Perdana Menteri.
Ringgit ditutup kukuh berbanding dolar AS
Pada 6 petang, ringgit meningkat kepada 4.7650/7710 berbanding dolar AS daripada 4.7745/7775 ketika ditutup pada Khamis.
[TERKINI] Elaun masuk akaun bank tapi saya tak mahu - PM
Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim memaklumkan, beliau memulangkan semula elaun diterimanya sebagai Pengerusi Khazanah Nasional Berhad.
Usia Persaraan: KWSP disaran sediakan pinjaman untuk akaun 1 penyimpang
KWSP disaran untuk lebih kreatif bagi membantu penyimpan capai jumlah ideal untuk zaman persaraan, iaitu sekitar RM240,000.
Penganalisis Ekonomi Dr Barjoyai Bardai mencadangkan KWSP pertimbang beri pinjaman untuk akaun 1, dengan syarat ia tidak boleh diganggu.
#AWANI745
Penganalisis Ekonomi Dr Barjoyai Bardai mencadangkan KWSP pertimbang beri pinjaman untuk akaun 1, dengan syarat ia tidak boleh diganggu.
#AWANI745
MoF tiada rekod surat kelulusan Najib
Mahkamah Tinggi Kuala Lumpur diberitahu, Kementerian Kewangan tidak mempunyai pengetahuan mengenai dua surat kelulusan yang ditandatangani oleh Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak selaku Menteri Kewangan.
#AWANI745
#AWANI745
Kes saman Ahmad Zahid terhadap Muhyiddin selesai secara baik
Kes saman yang difailkan Timbalan Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi terhadap bekas Perdana Menteri Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, selesai secara baik di Mahkamah Tinggi hari ini.
Heath Ledger papar sisi berbeza dalam filem dokumentari baharu
Sembilan tahun selepas kematiannya pada usia 28, penonton melihat kehidupan pelakon Australia Heath Ledger dari sisi yang berbeza menerusi kanta kamera peribadinya.