MICKEY ROURKE - FIVE U.S. FILMS TO COMPETE AT VENICE

FIVE U.S. FILMS TO COMPETE AT VENICE

Five U.S. films are among the 21 that will compete for the prestigious Golden Lion award at the 65th annual Venice Film Festival, the Biennale, scheduled to run from Aug. 27 to Sept. 6. At a news conference, festival organizers announced that among the films participating in the competition will be Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood; Guillermo Ariaga's The Burning Plain, starring Kim Basinger and Charlize Theron; Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker , starring Ralph Fiennes; Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married , starring Anne Hathaway and Rosemarie DeWitt; and Amir Naderi's Vegas: Based on a True Story. (Little could be learned about the latter film, whose title is almost identical to Brett Ratner's Breaking Vegas: Based on a True Story , which was released earlier this year. A news story earlier this year said that Naderi was working on a film titled Digging in Vegas. ) In addition, four films from Italy and four from Japan will participate in the competition. The Japanese films include Takeshi Kitano's Achilles and the Tortoise and Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea , from famed Japanese (hand) animator Hayao Miyazaki, about a fish who falls in love with a boy and uses magic to become human. Mamuro Oshii's The Sky Crawlers, is also animated. nother Japanese film entered in the competition, is also animated. The festival's opening film is the Coen brothers' Burn After Reading starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and John Malkovich.

29/07/2008