The Venice Film Festival has announced a new, competitive section for the 66th edition of the festival,Controcampo Italiano, which will focus on the latest trends in Italian cinema.

The section will see seven fiction and non-fiction films have their world premiere and compete for the Controcampo Italiano prize.

No joint-winners will be allowed, and a jury of three Italian film, cinema or press professionals will select the winner, which will also be awarded a Kodak film voucher worth $54,000(Euros 40,000).

The section is a reprise of one that was introduced to the Venice Film Festival in 1980 by former Venice Film Festival director Carlo Lizzani.

That section was repeated but became increasingly diffuse over the years, serving more of a showcase function.

The new version reinstated by Venice artistic director Marco Mueller will restore a much more explorative stance to trends in Italian cinema.

Mueller and his selection committee will reinforce Lizzani’s original missive to offer interesting examples of Italian film, rather than seek to provide a comprehensive picture.

The new section was approved by the Venice Biennale board of directors chaired by Paolo Baratta.

The Venice Film Festival also announced the international correspondents for several regions:

Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan - North America

Maria Ruggieri - China

Luciano Barisone - South and Central America

Dora Bouchoucha - Africa and Arab world

Babak Karimi - Iran

Cecilia Cossio - India

Fabio Fumagalli -Austria, Benelux, Portugal, Switzerland

Alena Shumakova -Balkans and former Soviet Union

Mikko Tomita -Japan

Enrico Magrelli assists Marco Mueller in cultural programming and relations with Italian cinema. The selection committee is composed of: Paolo Bertolin, Marie-Pierre Duhamel, Claudio Masenza, Alberto Pezzotta.

The 66th edition of the Venice Film Festival runs from September 2-12 2009.