Tim Burton's stop-motion animation CORPSE BRIDE is among many features that will have their world premieres at the upcoming 62nd Venice Intl. Film Festival where animation film director Hayao Miyazaki will become the first Japanese to receive an honorary Golden Lion award for his career achievements.
Festival Director Marco Muller said Miyazaki's style expressed romanticism and humanism in spectacular narratives while the fictitious worlds the director depicts always contain something eye-opening to catch the imagination of adults, awakening their inner child.
The festival, which runs Aug. 31 through Sept. 10, 2005, has set aside Sept. 9 as Miyazaki Day when some of his films will screen. Miyazaki's latest film HOWLS MOVING CASTLE was shown at the festival last year, garnering producing animation house Studio Ghibli the Osella award for the advanced techniques used in the film.
CORPSE BRIDE, starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, skedded by Warner Bros. for an October release in the U.S. will be screening along with Paramount pics ELIZABETHTOWN and FOUR BROTHERS. The European launch of Ron Howard's CINDERELLA MAN, from Buena Vista International, is also among titles being promoted out-of-competition Touchstone and Buena Vista's Venice-set CASANOVA, will be a gala event along with other Casanova pics, including a freshly restored print of Federico Fellini's 1976 Il CASANOVA DI FEDERICO FELLINI, starring Donald Sutherland in the title role.
Steven Soderberg's digitally-shot murder mystery, BUBBLE; Stuart Gordon's David Mamet-scripted EDMOND and Scott Derrickson's horror thriller, THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE, comprise the other non-competing U.S. fare.
GOOD NIGHT. AND, GOOD LUCK, a black-and-white cinema verite depiction of the evils of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, from George Cloney and Warner Independent Pictures, will be in competition with John Turturro's contemporary ROMANCE AND CIGARETTES, produced by New York indie Greene Street and distributed by United Artists.
Korean Park Chan-wook's highly anticipated SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE will be in competition. Street racing actioner, INITIAL D, currently a hit in Asia by Hong Kong helmers Andrew Mak and Alan Lau, plus sci fi toon and hit videogame follow-up, FINAL FANTASY VII: ADVENT CHILDREN by Tetsuya Nomura, and Yokai Daisenso, the latest from Takashi Miike, are showing out of competition.
Italian films competing on their home turf are Roberto Faenza's infidelity drama, THE DAYS OF ABANDONMENT, starring Margherita Buy, from Medusa; and Cristina Comencini's child abuse pic, THE BEAST IN THE HEART, and Pupi Avati's LA SECONDA NOTTE DI NOZZE (THE SECOND WEDDING NIGHT), both from RaiCinema. Also in the Italian mix is Abel Ferrara's Mary, starring Juliet Binoche as an actress obsessed with Mary Magdalene, distributed by France's Wild Bunch.
THE SECRET LIFE OF WORDS, by Spain's Isabel Coixet (MY LIFE WITHOUT ME), starring Sarah Polley and Tim Robbins, from Focus Features, is among highlights of the Venize Horizons sidebar to open as a special event along with DRAWING RESTRAINT 9, the first feature by visual artist Matthew Barney, starring Bjork.
Festival organizers have pared down the lineup to 54, from some 80 titles shown last year, to help smooth out logistical snags plagued with overbooked screenings into mob scenes at last year's edition. The reduction was also made to facilitate enforcing security measures from potential acts of terrorism, of which Italy is currently considered a high-risk country.
The jury, headed by Oscar winning Italo set designer Dante Ferretti, also includes U.S. producer Christine Vachon, Icelandic musician Emiliana Torrini, the Chinese author Acheng, French helmer Claire Denis and German helmer Edgar Reitz.
Muller, an Asian specialist who speaks fluent Mandarin and Cantonese, will open the festival with Hong Kong helmer Tsui Hark's SEVEN SWORDS and close with Thai-born Peter Ho-sun Chan's PERHAPS LOVE, a romantic triangle tale set during the making of a Chinese musical. This marks the first time pics set in mainland China open and close a major European fest.
The world's oldest film festival, which began in 1932, is one of the three major international film festivals, the other two being those held in Cannes and Berlin.
