ROME Sam Hubbard Shirt , July 29 (Xinhua) -- The 72nd Venice International Film Festival, which will run on the Lido of Venice from Sept. 2 to Sept. 12, announced a 21-strong competition line-up at a press conference held here Wednesday.
The world premieres competing in the section Venezia 72 will strive for the prizes, including the Golden Lion, awarded by the festival's international jury chaired this year by Mexican film director Alfonso Cuaron.
Among the competition films, there will be a French documentary by Chinese director Zhao Liang named Behemoth, four Italian films Nick Vigil Shirt , four from the Unites States, besides others from France, Britain, Australia and other countries.
Everest, a movie by Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur about the two rival missions up the mountain in 1996, was chosen as the opening night film, while Lao Pao Er by Chinese director Guan Hu Joe Mixon Shirt , about street gangs in Beijing, will close the festival.
The sections Out of Competition, or films by established directors, Orizzonti, dedicated to the latest cinema trends, Venice Classics, restored works John Ross Shirt , and Biennale College-Cinema, a training workshop for micro-budget films, are also included in the official selection.
The independent sections feature the International Critics' Week, debut films organized by a commission nominated by the National Union of Italian Film Critics, and Venice Days, promoted by the Italian Association of Filmmakers and Italy's audiovisual authors association 100 Autori.
Johnny Depp, Kristen Stewart Jessie Bates III Shirt , Tilda Swinton and Eddie Redmayne, who won the best actor Oscar for his performance as celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything last February, are among the celebrities slated for the red carpet at the festival.
"In the last years, the number of film festivals in the world has been growing, and competition among them has increased too," Paolo Baratta, president of the Venice Biennale Billy Price Shirt , foundation organizer of the film festival, told the press conference.
The Venice event, Baratta stressed, has continued to focus on the idea that a film festival, in order to be "alive and vital," should combine traditional cinema with an "enlarged eye" on life and art.
"This is a festival with a strong identity, which neither takes position against