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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 seen as a launch pad for the
industry's award season after premiering Academy winners in its
last three editions.
Space drama "Gravity", comedy "Birdman" and last year's clergy
sex abuse film "Spotlight" secured Oscars after premiering in
Venice and those wins have helped attract talent to this year's
festival, said artistic director Alberto Barbera.
"The second element is that this year there is a lot of good
stuff around," he told Reuters as the red carpet was laid out in
preparation for the star-filled line-up.
The rich selection of U.S. and international movies include
Damien Chazelle's "La La Land", the festival's opener, starring
Stone and Gosling in a musical comedy-drama about a jazz pianist
who falls in love with an aspiring actress in Los Angeles.
"'La La Land' is something that everyone is talking about," said
Variety film critic Jay Weissberg. "As much as maybe people
don't even want to admit that they like musicals, everybody kind
of likes a musical."
Others include fashion designer Tom Ford's thriller "Nocturnal
Animals" and Denis Villeneuve's science fiction drama "Arrival",
both featuring Amy Adams, and Gibson's "Hacksaw Ridge".
Also hotly anticipated are the first two episodes of Paolo
Sorrentino's mini TV series "The Young Pope", featuring Law as a
conservative, cigarette-smoking American pontiff Pius XIII,
which will screen in an out-of-competition section.
"They think that he's going to be more liberal but it turns out
he's much more conservative, so in a way it's the opposite of
Pope Francis ... it's a brilliant concept," Weissberg said.
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 Concrete slabs were positioned at entrances to control
vehicle traffic, and security officials were screening arrivals
at the festival venue on the eve of the event which runs till
Sept. 10.
"After all the terrorist attacks in Europe the security is one of
the main issues," Barbera said, but added the measures would be
sufficiently discreet to not disturb the festival.
A new, cube-shaped theater will open during the event, bearing
witness to some of the work done since Barbera returned at the helm
of the festival in 2012 and made restoring the site to its former
glory a priority.
The festival organizers have canceled the beachside gala dinner
scheduled for Wednesday in respect of the nearly 300 victims of the
earthquake that hit central Italy last week.
"We are here for a festival which is a cultural event, we don't want
to give up of course on the event but we want to give a concrete
sign of our solidarity to the victims," Barbera said.
(Writing by Agnieszka Flak; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
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