US, Italy, Britain dominate Venice film festival lineup

Jul 28, 2011, 14:20 GMT

Rome - Twenty-one of the 22 films competing in this year's Venice Film Festival were unveiled Thursday with the lineup dominated by movies from the US, Italy and Britain.

All the films vying for the top Golden Lion award will receive their first public screenings in the lagoon city - 'a first' for the storied festival, its director Marco Mueller said during the presentation news conference in Rome.

A 22nd 'surprise film' will be revealed during the festival which ends on September 10.

Joining George Clooney's previously announced Ides of March which will open the festival on August 31 were four other US-produced films.

These include Todd Solondz's Dark Horse starring Mia Farrow and Christopher Walken and Abel Ferrara's 4.44 Last Day on Earth with Willem Dafoe.

Host-nation Italy and Britain will each be represented by three films while Asian films in competition include Japanese filmmaker Sion Sono's Himizu and Ann Hui's Hong Kong-produced Taoije (A Simple Life).

Controversial Polish-French director Roman Polanski will premiere his latest effort, Carnage, which stars Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet and Christopher Waltz.

Polanski is wanted in the US on charges of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor stemming from a case stretching back three decades.

In 2009-2010 he was detained by Swiss authorities for over six months, but later freed when a US extradition request was rejected.

Carnage, an adaption of French playwright Yasmina Reza' theatre piece of the same name, tells the story of two sets of parents who meet to discuss a playground fight between their sons.

Another much-anticipated film is Swedish director Tomas Alfredson's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy based on the 1974 John le Carre novel of the same name and starring Britons Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.

Also set to draw interest is Iranian-born French graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi's Poulet aux prunes (Chicken with plums) co-directed with Vincent Paronnaud.

Unlike her well-received 2007 effort Persepolis, about the coming-of-age of a young girl against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution, Satrapi's latest film is not animated but involves human actors.

The Venice Film Festival was established in 1932 and is the world's oldest cinema competition. This year will be its 68th edition.