Venice Film Festival Preview: Oscar Season Starts

The Venice Film festival kicks of this Wednesday, which, according to The Los Angeles Times is the unofficial start of Oscar season. Either way, it's an exciting and busy time for film lovers.

Previous director Alberto Barbera, who ran the event from 1998 to 2002, is returning as director for the 69th edition of the festival, which pits 18 films against each other in competition for the prestigious Leone d'Oro award. "I don't like the general trend which contaminates all the festivals of the world, getting bigger and bigger, inviting more and more movies," Barbera explained. "You have to say no to a lot more filmmakers, and it's not an easy thing to tell someone that maybe it's better to come to Venice with your next film instead of this one. But I like this idea that there is no automatic entry, even for well-established filmmakers."

This year of the oldest international film festival will feature 60 world premiers. Some of the most highly anticipated titles include The Master and To The Wonder. The Master, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson has perhaps the most hype. The enigmatic film has been likened to the cinematography of Hitchcock's, and if P.T Anderson's reputation is anything to go by, (auteur of classics like Magnolia and Punch Drunk Love) The Master will be a shoe in for a flurry of Oscar nominations. The festival opens with The Reluctant Fundamentalist,/i> Mira Nair's adaptation of the Mohsin Hamid bestseller about a Pakistan-born Princeton graduate, whose Wall Street dreams are derailed by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.