Stars flock to Venice as world’s oldest film festival begins

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Birdman kicks off the Venice Film Festival.

Alberto Barbera, the director of the Venice Film Festival. David Azia / AP Photo

The Venice Film Festival kicked off yesterday with the arrival of stars by water taxi for an art-house-dominated line-up rich with tales of war, poetry and the mafia.

Screening first at the world's oldest film festival was the Mexican director Alejandro Gonzàlez Iñàrritu's Birdman or (the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), starring Michael Keaton of Beetlejuice and Batman fame.

In the first of 20 flicks vying for the coveted Golden Lion award, Keaton plays a washed-up actor once famous for playing a superhero, who is struggling to put on a Broadway play in an attempt to regain his former glory.

Iñàrritu pleases fans by bringing on board other superhero veterans, including Emma Stone from The Amazing Spider-Man and Edward Norton, the star of 2008's The Incredible Hulk.

Other world premieres include Good Kill by New Zealand's Andrew Niccol, starring Ethan Hawke as a drone operator in Afghanistan, and David Gordon Green's Manglehorn, with Al Pacino as an ex-con turned locksmith.

The festival director Alberto Barbera brushed aside criticisms that this year’s edition was light on Hollywood stars, saying the aim had been to create space for high-quality, innovative flicks that could otherwise fall through the cracks.

“I have nothing against glamour, but it cannot be the only component in a festival,” he said. “The idea is to explore cinema today in all its complexities.”

The festival is bringing a new generation of artists to the Lido this year with its first edition of a gap-financing market – which matches young producers in need of funds with investors and distributors – as well as Final Cut, which showcases completed films from Africa and the Middle East to buyers.

There is a buzz from critics already over the only first feature competing for the Lion, the Turkish Sivas, by Kaan Mujdeci, about a young boy who befriends a dog he saves from a fight in a bid to protect himself from a violent society.

The Iranian-American Ramin Bahrani looks at the fallout of the economic crisis with his drama 99 Homes, about a father trying to recover his house after an eviction.