01/09/2009

Anticipated by a pre-opening this evening in Campo San Polo of the screening of Mario Monicelli’s The Great War (in a version restored by the Cineteca Nazionale, half a century after the film won the Golden Lion ex aequo with Roberto Rossellini’s Generale della Rovere), Giuseppe Tornatore’s highly anticipated Baarìa [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] will tomorrow open the 66th Venice International Film Festival (September 2-12).

The international premiere by the Oscar-winning director will be applauded by the film’s young stars Francesco Scianna and Margareth Madè, and attended by, among others, directors Werner Herzog and Michael Moore; fashion designers Dolce and Gabbana and Giorgio Armani; US producer Harvey Weinstein, production designer Dante Ferretti; Cultural Minister Sandro Bondi, president of the Centro Sperimentale Cinematografia Francesco Alberoni; president and CEO, respectively, of Cinecittà Luce Roberto Cicutto and Luciano Sovena; Italian producer Domenico Procacci: Giampaolo Letta and Carlo Rossella of Medusa: and Venice-born champion swimmer Federica Pellegrini. As well as festival matron Maria Grazia Cucinotta and, obviously, the jury, presided over by Taiwanese director Ang Lee.

Artistic director Marco Mueller is particularly pleased this year by "the presence of numerous debut films in the Official Selection, of which five are in Competition. Despite the economic crisis, there are people investing in the future" (see news on the festival program). There are 32 countries represented and 16 Italian films, four of which are in Competition. However, on the domestic front, the showdown seems to be exclusively between Tornatore and Michele Placido, who is bringing to the Lido Il Grande Sogno [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], a film on 1968 seen through the eyes of a small-town cop (Riccardo Scamarcio).

There will be no lack of big names on the Laguna. The most highly anticipated are George Clooney, star of Grant Heslov’s The Men Who Stare at Goats, and Matt Damon, who stars in Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant. Jane Birkin and Sergio Castellitto will accompany the screening of Jacques Rivette’s 36 Views of Saint-Loup Peak [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], while Birkin’s daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg will not be present for Patrice Chereau’s Persécution [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile].

Viggo Mortensen will be on hand with John Hillcoat’s The Road; Colin Firth and Julianne Moore for fashioner designer Tom Ford’s directorial debut A Single Man; Isabelle Huppert for Claire Denis’ White Material [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]; Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes for Werner Herzog’s The Bad Lieutenant; Omar Sharif for Ahmed Maher’s The Traveller; and Tilda Swinton for I Am Love by Luca Guadagnino.

(Translated from Italian)