Sawt Falasteen - Julia Roberts, Jude Law to feature at star-packed Venice Film Festival

Roberts is one of many A-listers set to appear at the increasingly influential Venice film extravaganza from late August for the premiere of her latest movie, the Amazon-produced "After the Hunt".

Directed by Italy's Luca Guadagnino, a Venice regular, it tells the story of a sexual assault case at a prestigious American university and will run outside the main film competition, according to festival director Alberto Barbera.

"It is the first time that Julia Roberts will walk the red carpet of the Venice Film Festival so we're very happy to have her," Barbera told reporters in a presentation of the August 27-September 9 line up.

The main competition category, where 21 features will vie for the prestigious Golden Lion for best film, includes a host of star-packed productions including "The Wizard of the Kremlin" by Olivier Assayas.

The movie is an adaptation by French director Assayas of a best-selling book about Putin's rise to power, featuring British actor Law as the Kremlin strongman.

Law told Deadline in January that the role was "an Everest to climb", adding that he was "looking up thinking, 'Oh Christ'."

Other high-profile, in-competition movies selected by the festival include the latest thriller from American Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow titled "A House of Dynamite" and "Father Mother Sister Brother" by Jim Jarmusch, starring Adam Driver and Cate Blanchett.

Benny Safdie's film about a wrestling champion "The Smashing Machine" has Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in the lead role alongside Emily Blunt, who delivers a "memorable performance" as his wife, according to Barbera.

A much-discussed new interpretation of "Frankenstein" by Guillermo del Toro will also be in the running for prizes, with Barbera saying that producer Netflix "has not skimped on the means made available to del Toro's imagination".

American director Noah Baumbach returns with "Jay Kelly", a comedy co-written with his wife Greta Gerwig, featuring an A-list cast that includes George Clooney playing an actor with an identity crisis.

-- Feature on Gaza --

Alongside five Italian films, a handful of arthouse productions as well as the Hollywood blockbusters, festival organisers have also selected a feature about the war in Gaza in what is the most overtly political offering in the main competition.

"The Voice of Hind Rajab", by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, reconstructs the death of six-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, who was killed last year by Israeli forces.

She and several relatives were fleeing an Israeli offensive in Gaza City in January 2024 when their car came under attack.

In a case that led to international outrage, Rajab could be heard pleading for help in a desperate phone call to rescuers from the Red Crescent after she was left as the sole survivor in the badly damaged vehicle.

She and two Red Crescent workers who went to find her were later found dead.

Barbera said it was one of the films that "will have the biggest impact on audiences and critics, and I hope there will be no controversies".

"I'm moved when I think of the movie," he said, adding that Ben Hania had reproduced Rajab's phone calls in her film.

Around 370 actors and directors signed an open letter during the Cannes film festival in May saying they were "ashamed" of their industry's "passivity" about the war in Gaza, including Cannes jury president Juliette Binoche.

- Herzog honoured -

Other highlights in Venice will include the return of American director Gus Van Sant who is set to show his first movie since 2018, "Dead Man's Wire", out of competition.

Among the documentaries, German director Werner Herzog will project his latest film, "Ghost Elephants", about "a mysterious herd of ghost elephants in the jungles of Angola," according to Barbera.

Herzog will be presented with a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement during the festival.

Sofia Coppola will premiere a documentary about her friend and fashion designer Marc Jacobs, while fellow American directors Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus have persuaded veteran US journalist Seymour Hersh to collaborate for a film about him called "Cover Up".

The head of the jury for the main competition at the 82nd edition of the festival will be US film director Alexander Payne who is best known for films such as "Sideways", "The Descendants" and "About Schmidt".

X.Habash--SF-PST