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 Top Hollywood talent and auteur directors will
be vying for the Golden Lion at the world's oldest film festival
which, after a period in the doldrums, is again considered a
launching pad for the industry's award season, after it
premiered Academy winners in its last four editions.
Space drama "Gravity", clergy sex-abuse film "Spotlight" and
last year's musical "La La Land" secured Oscars after featuring
in Venice. Those wins have helped attract talent to this year's
festival, said artistic director Alberto Barbera.
"Finally all the majors, the big Hollywood studios, realized
that coming to Venice ... it really changes the perspective of a
film," Barbera told Reuters on the eve of the festival, which
runs till Sept. 9. "It's much easier to get the films that we
want."
The festival's 74th edition opens with Alexander Payne's
"Downsizing", a satire starring Matt Damon about a couple who
decide to shrink themselves to four inches tall.
The rich selection of U.S. and international movies also
includes Darren Aronofsky's "Mother!", starring Lawrence and
Javier Bardem; Guillermo Del Toro's "The Shape of Water"; and
Stephen Frears' "Victoria and Abdul", with Judi Dench as the
19th century queen, which screens in the out-of-competition
section.
"There are a lot of movies with strong Oscar potential," said
Ariston Anderson, a film critic at the Hollywood Reporter. She
lamented the fact that only one female director featured in the
main competition, but complimented the organizers for being the
first major cinema event to feature a virtual reality
competition.
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 "It sends a strong message for a platform like
Venice to have a competition for VR, that this is a new art
form, we are going to judge it, we’re going to accept it and see
what comes out of it," she said.
Concrete slabs were positioned at entrances to control vehicle
traffic, and arrivals were screened at the festival venue as
security was beefed up following violent attacks across Europe.
Current affairs also feature in the lineup with the
Ai Weiwei's hotly anticipated "Human Flow", the Chinese artist's
first film and "a daring documentary", Barbera said, adding that
bringing the film to Venice was a political statement as well.
"It’s not just a festival, we are a festival which deals with the
problems of the contemporary world."
One of the highlights this year is Clooney's return to Venice with "Suburbicon",
a dark comedy starring Damon and Julianne Moore. Clooney, who tied
the knot in a huge celebrity wedding in Venice in 2014, has since
made Italy his second home.
"Venice loves Clooney, Clooney loves Venice ... Jennifer Lawrence is
obviously a huge fashion icon, she makes a presence wherever she
goes, but I don’t think anybody commands a room like Clooney does in
Venice," Anderson said.
(Additional reporting by Hanna Rantala, editing by Larry King)
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