French stars Deneuve and Depardieu team up at Venice Film Festival

Sep 4, 2010, 9:37 GMT

Venice, Italy - Potiche, a film dealing with family and labour relations in a French town and starring veteran French actors Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu, was set to screen Saturday at the Venice Film Festival.

The comedy, directed by Francois Ozon, centres around a wealthy industrialist who is taken hostage by his umbrella factory workers - an event which allows his apparently submissive wife to step into the fray.

After Happy Few, Antony Cordier's study of partner-swapping couples, Potiche is the second French film to screen in-competition since the festival began on Wednesday.

Another in-competition film making its debut at the festival's Lido venue, is US director Kelly Reichardt's Meek Cutoff, which looks at the tribulations faced by a group of 19th century immigrants tackling the Oregon Trail by wagon.

While not part of the festival's official competition selection, Martin Scorsese's documentary, A Letter to Elia, was also expected to attract much interest on Saturday.

The film examines the life of legendary director Elia Kazan whose films, A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, and East of Eden, are widely regarded as milestones in cinema history.

But for some, the reputation of Constantinople-born (now Istanbul) Kazan, who died in 2003, remains tarnished by the testimony he gave against colleagues who were suspected of being Communists, and hence 'un-American activities,' during the so-called 1950s McCarthy-era investigations.

The Venice Film Festival, the world's oldest cinema competition, ends on September 11 when the awards including the Golden Lion for best film will be announced.