Venice 2001: Film Festival Line-up

Following this year's radical restructure of one of the world's oldest international film events, Venice film festival chief Alberto Barbera has unveiled the line-up of the two official competition sections for the event's 58th edition.

Now including the Cinema Of The Present competition - which showcases some 30 contemporary, debut and fringe films - as well alongside the more established Venice competition which runs in parallel, the festival boasts a number of widely-anticipated new titles by, among others, Brazilian director Walter Salles, French auteur Andre Techine, Italy's Giuseppe Piccioni and India's Mira Nair. In addition, the programme features one of the first Philippine titles to screen at a major festival, Jeffrey Jeturian's Tuhog (Larger Than Life).

The festival will open on August 29th with a screening of Dust, Milcho Manchevski's long-awaited feature which is a multi-national co-production between Britain, Italy, Germany and Macedonia, and stars Joseph Fiennes. The event's closing film has not yet been announced.

While Barbera has insisted that distinctions between the two competition line-ups are deliberately vague and that there is no A or B-league competition, he did say the festival's traditional competition, Venice 58, has been reserved for more "classic" fare.

Titles in this section include Alejandro Amenabar's Spanish-US film, The Others, which stars Nicole Kidman; Fruit Chan's Hollywood Hong Kong, US director Larry Clark's Bully and Ken Loach's new film, The Navigators.

The Cinema of the Present, which aims to promote more cutting edge cinema, will open with Giuseppe Bertolucci's L'amore Probabilmente and will unspool titles by both first-time and established film makers, including Germany's Werner Herzog, who will unveil Invincible and Italo-Argentinian director Marco Bechis's Hijos.

A diverse selection of films will screen out-of-competition, including Venice regular Woody Allen who will show The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Benoit Jacquot's widely-anticipated Tosca, based on the Puccini opera, US writer-director David Mamet's Heist, which stars Gene Hackman and Danny De Vito, and Steven Spielberg's A. I. Artificial Intelligence.

Stars expected to attend the festival include Nicole Kidman, Jude Law, Helen Hunt, Johnny Depp, Jeanne Moreau, Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Denzel Washington, Joseph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Gene Hackman, Danny De Vito, and Tim Roth.

The festival will also present a Golden Lion career award to French director-critic Eric Rohmer, who will unveil his new film, L'Anglaise Et Le Duc.

The Venice 58 competition jury will be headed by The Son's Room Italian director Nanni Moretti, and will include writer Amitav Ghosh, director Jerzy Skolimowski, actress Jeanne Balibar and film producer Vibeke Windelov. Two jurors are still to be announced. The Cinema of the Present jury will be headed by Shiguehiko Hasumi (Cahiers du Cinema). Jury members are Screen International's chief film critic Emanuel Levy, Michel Ciment (Positif), Piera Detassis (Ciak) and Gavin Smith (Film Comment).

Alejandro AMENÁBAR, Los otros (The Others) Spain/USA, 104'
with Nicole Kidman, Fionnula Flanagan, Christopher Eccleston

João BOTELHO, Quem es tu' Portugal, 112'
with Patricia Guerriero, Suzana Borges, Rui Morisson

Antonio CAPUANO, Luna rossa Italy, 116'
with Carlo Cecchi, Licia Maglietta, Toni Servillo

Fruit CHAN, Heung gong yau gok horleiwood (Hollywood Hong Kong) Hong Kong/France/Japan, 102'
with Glen Chin, Ho Sai Man, Leu Sze Ping, Wong Tak Him

Larry CLARK, Bully USA, 106'
with Brad Renfro, Nick Stahl, Rachel Miner

Alfonso CUAR'N, Y tu mamá tambien Mexico, 105'
with Maribel Verdú Gael Garcia Bernal Diego Luna

Philippe GARREL, Sauvage innocence France/The Netherlands, 125'
with Medni Belhaj Kalem, Julia Faure, Michel Subor

Amos GITAI, Eden France/Italy/Israel, 91'
with Samantha Morton, Thomas Jane, Danny Huston, Arthur Miller

KIM Ki-Duk Soochwieen Bodmyung (Address Unknown), Korea, 117'
with Dong-Kun Yang, Young-Min Kim, Min-Jung Ban

Richard LINKLATER, Waking Life USA, 97'
with Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Charles Gunning

Ken LOACH, The Navigators UK/Germany/Spain, 92'
with Tom Craig, Joe Duttine, Steve Huison

Mira NAIR, Monsoon Wedding India, 114'
with Naseeruddin Shah, Lillete Dubey, Shefali Shetty

Goran PASKALJEVIC, How Harry Became a Tree Ire/ Italy/UK/ France, 100'
with Colm Meaney, Adrian Dunbar, Cillian Murphy

Babak PAYAMI, Raye makhfi (Void Votes) Iran/Italy, 100'
with Nassim Abdi, Cyrus Abidi

Clare PEPLOE, The Triumph of Love Italy/UK, 107'
with Mira Sorvino, Rachael Stirling, Ben Kingsley

Giuseppe PICCIONI , Luce dei miei occhi Italy, 112'
with Luigi Lo Cascio, Sandra Ceccarelli, Silvio Orlando, Barbara Valente

Lucian PINTILIE, L'Après-midi d'un tortionnaire Romania/France, 88'
with Gheorghe Dinica, Radu Beligan, Ioana Ana Macaria

Walter SALLES, Behind the Sun Brazil/Switzerland/France, 106'
with Rodrigo Santoro, Jose Dumont, Ravi Lacerda

Ulrich SEIDL, Hundstage Austria, 120'
with Maria Hofstätter, Alfred Mrva, Erich Finsches

Andre TÉCHINÉ, Loin France/Spain, 120'
with Stephane Rideau, Lubna Azaabal, Mohamed Hamaidi

Opening Film
Giuseppe BERTOLUCCI, L'amore probabilmente Italy/Switzerland, 107'
with Fabrizio Gifuni, Sonia Bergamasco, Rosalinda Celentano

Marco BECHIS, Figli/Hijos Italy, 100'
with Giulia Sarano, Carlos Echevarria

Sergei BODROV Jr., Sestry (Sisters) Russia, 85'
with Oksana Akinjshina, Katya Gorina, Sergei Bodrov Jr.

Laurent CANTET, L'Emploi du temps France, 133'
with Aurelien Recoing, Karin Viard, Serge Livrozet

Sandra GOLDBACHER, Me Without You UK, 107'
with Anna Friel, Kyle MacLachlan, Anna Popplewell

Werner HERZOG, Invincible Germany/UK, 128'
with Jouko Ahola, Udo Kier, Renate Krößner, Tim Roth

Jeffrey JETURIAN, Tuhog (Larger Than Life) The Philippines, 105'
with Ina Raymundo, Irma Adlawan, Nante Montreal

Fatmir KOÇI, Tirana Year Zero Albania/France/Belgium, 89'
with Nevin Mecaj, Ermela Teli, Behar Mera, Lars Rudolph

Giovanni Davide MADERNA, L'amore imperfetto Italy/Spain, 92'
with Enrico Lo Verso, Marta Belaustegui

Damien ODOUL, Le souffle France, 80'
with Pierre-Louis Bonnet, Dominique Chevailier, Maxime Dalbrut

Jacques ROZIER, Fifi Martingale France, 127'
with Jean Lefebure, Mike Marshall, Francois Chattot

SHIOTA Akihiko, Gaichu (Harmful Insect) Japan, 92'
with Aoi