介绍:
Anchor:
The 71st Venice Film Festival opens on Wednesday this week. The festival will bring 11 days of high art and Hollywood glamour to the canal-crossed Italian city. Chi Huiguang has more.
Reporter:
There are twenty films competing for the coveted Golden Lion prize in this year's Venice Film Festival. 19 of them are world premieres. And several dozen more will jostle for the attention of critics and audiences.
The festival kicks off Wednesday with the world premiere of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's twisted comedy "Birdman."
Festival director Alberto Barbera evaluates:
(Soundbite 1: Alberto Barbera)
"It's a great movie, it's very original, very personal and at the same time is very entertaining and surprising and so I am very happy about that. Last year we opened with 'Gravity,' this year we open with a more personal and original film, which is good for the festival as well."
Anticipation is high for a film that promises to mix the bold, surrealism-tinged sensibility of Inarritu, such as "Babel" and "21 Grams" with inspired casting. Former "Batman" star Michael Keaton plays a past-his-prime actor struggling to move beyond his best-known role as an iconic action hero.
Last year's Venice opener, space thriller "Gravity," went on to win seven Academy Awards; the director hopes "Birdman" will also be a high-flyer.
The director says that workers painted, hammered and laid red carpet at the festival site on Venice's Lido resort island.
(Soundbite 2: Alberto Barbera)
"It's very original, very personal and at the same time it's very entertaining and surprising."
According to Barbera, one theme that is prevalent in this year's selection is war , with films such as Andrew Niccol's drone-warfare drama "Good Kill," starring Ethan Hawke, and Turkish epic "The Cut" which is based on the Armenian Genocide.
(Soundbite 3: Alberto Barbera)
"For example, there are a lot of films about wars - about war - this year, which is not strange. Cinema is, as it was in the past, one of the best antenna to understand what is going on in the world, which are the main worries of the audience, of the people and so on. We have to say the fact that we live in dangerous times and there are a lot of conflicts everywhere in the world, which are not under control, and so we are really living in a risky moment."
Like its rival Cannes, the Venice Film Festival embraces actors and directors who are adventurous, unpredictable or down-right ornery.
This year the festival is honoring James Franco, presenting the prolific American actor-director with the heroically titled "Glory to the Filmmaker Prize."
Franco will also premiere "The Sound and the Fury," his second adaptation of a William Faulkner novel, at an out-of-competition festival screening.
Barbera says the festival wants to recognize a "peculiar and creative talent," even if not all Franco's creative risks paid off.
(Soundbite 4: Alberto Barbera)
"He's a writer, script writer, filmmaker, stage director, whatever. He's not able to stop and have a rest, he's creating all the time. And I think that he's an excellent actor of course. But what he's doing as a filmmaker, trying to confront himself with some of the masters of American literature, it's something very daring. Not all the films are completely satisfying but it's so strong, the project in itself, it's so compelling, it's so daring that I think that he really deserves in a way a tribute to underline this kind of creativity, which is unusual. For an actor it's something very peculiar and interesting."
Other directors sure to provoke include Abel Ferrara, competing for the Golden Lion with "Pasolini," a film about the outrageous life and violent death of the Italian director.
And Danish bad-boy Lars von Trier is likely to bore and thrill in equal measure with the director's cut of his over-the-top sexual odyssey "Nymphomaniac."
The Festival runs through until September 6th when this year's winners are announced.
For Studio+, I am Chi Huiguang.
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