The Venice Film Festival will open with the sequel to Tim Burton's Beetlejuice and a strong star presence for the glitzy competition, AFP reported.
Lady Gaga, George Clooney, Daniel Craig, Julianne Moore and Brad Pitt are among the celebrities expected to be in the Italian city for this year's edition of the world's longest running festival known as 'La Mostra'.
Arriving by water taxi across the Venetian lagoon for the ten-day event, the stars will bring some Hollywood glamor back to the revered festival after last year's low-budget edition due to the Hollywood strike.
First up is the no-contest Beetlejuice 2, starring Michael Keaton as the mayhem-inducing demon alongside Winona Ryder, Catherine O'Hara and Monica Bellucci.
On August 29, all eyes will be on Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas in Maria, Pablo Laraine's biopic about the tortured life of the opera diva.
It is among 21 international films competing for the top prize, the Golden Lion, which will be presented on September 7.
"There hasn't been such a consistent presence of star actors from so many countries for maybe more than 20 years," said festival director Alberto Barbera. According to him, this presence "could be useful" in drawing attention to the films.
The highly anticipated dark psychological thriller Joker: Madness for Two, the follow-up to American director Todd Phillips' Venice Film Festival-winning film based on the DC Comics characters set in gritty Gotham City.
The sequel returns Joaquin Phoenix, who won an Academy Award for his portrayal of the failed mentally ill clown. This time he will team up with Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn.
Daniel Craig starred in the film "Queer" by the Italian Luca Guadagnino, an adaptation of the novel by William Burroughs, which takes place in the 1940s in Mexico City. Australian director Justin Kurze's The Order stars Jude Law as an FBI agent investigating white supremacy in the Pacific Northwest.
Spain's Pedro Almodóvar returns with his first English-language feature, The Room Next Door, starring Moore and Tilda Swinton.
Nicole Kidman and Antonio Banderas star in Dutch director Halina Rein's erotic thriller Babygirl, about a powerful female CEO who embarks on a heated affair with a much younger intern.
The list also includes American director Brady Corbett's The Brutalist, starring Adrien Brody as a Hungarian-Jewish architect who immigrates to America after World War II and embarks on a project that promises to change the course of his life. | BGNES
The star-studded Venice Film Festival begins
The Venice Film Festival will open with the sequel to Tim Burton's Beetlejuice and a strong star presence for the glitzy competition, AFP reported.
Lady Gaga, George Clooney, Daniel Craig, Julianne Moore and Brad Pitt are among the celebrities expected to be in the Italian city for this year's edition of the world's longest running festival known as 'La Mostra'.
Arriving by water taxi across the Venetian lagoon for the ten-day event, the stars will bring some Hollywood glamor back to the revered festival after last year's low-budget edition due to the Hollywood strike.
First up is the no-contest Beetlejuice 2, starring Michael Keaton as the mayhem-inducing demon alongside Winona Ryder, Catherine O'Hara and Monica Bellucci.
On August 29, all eyes will be on Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas in Maria, Pablo Laraine's biopic about the tortured life of the opera diva.
It is among 21 international films competing for the top prize, the Golden Lion, which will be presented on September 7.
"There hasn't been such a consistent presence of star actors from so many countries for maybe more than 20 years," said festival director Alberto Barbera. According to him, this presence "could be useful" in drawing attention to the films.
The highly anticipated dark psychological thriller Joker: Madness for Two, the follow-up to American director Todd Phillips' Venice Film Festival-winning film based on the DC Comics characters set in gritty Gotham City.
The sequel returns Joaquin Phoenix, who won an Academy Award for his portrayal of the failed mentally ill clown. This time he will team up with Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn.
Daniel Craig starred in the film "Queer" by the Italian Luca Guadagnino, an adaptation of the novel by William Burroughs, which takes place in the 1940s in Mexico City. Australian director Justin Kurze's The Order stars Jude Law as an FBI agent investigating white supremacy in the Pacific Northwest.
Spain's Pedro Almodóvar returns with his first English-language feature, The Room Next Door, starring Moore and Tilda Swinton.
Nicole Kidman and Antonio Banderas star in Dutch director Halina Rein's erotic thriller Babygirl, about a powerful female CEO who embarks on a heated affair with a much younger intern.
The list also includes American director Brady Corbett's The Brutalist, starring Adrien Brody as a Hungarian-Jewish architect who immigrates to America after World War II and embarks on a project that promises to change the course of his life. | BGNES
