The Venice Film Festival opens with a Rupert Murdoch film, George Clooney and plenty of geopolitics

VENICE, Italy (AP) — George Clooney and Danny Boyle are helping kick off the Venice Film Festival in style Wednesday on the Lido. Clooney, a festival mainstay, is receiving a lifetime achievement award, while Boyle is premiering “Ink,” his film about Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of the British tabloid “The Sun” in 1969.

Over the course of the next 11 days, the festival will see many stars from Hollywood and beyond grace the red carpet, from Robert Pattinson to Noel and Liam Gallagher of Oasis, but the focus this year seems to be more on geopolitics than movie star moments. The sprawling lineup includes documentaries about the conflict in Gaza ( “Naza” ), Elon Musk (“Musk”) and independent Russian journalists covering the war in Ukraine (“My Undesirable Friends — Part II: Exile”) as well as Palestinian films and a short about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis.

The festival’s director Alberto Barbera told The Associated Press that most of the films they saw during the selection process dealt with “contemporary problems.”

“We didn’t really have a choice,” he said. “We are in a space open to everybody for discussion, for confrontation. Everybody is completely free to express themselves. And I’m, in a way, really happy that this kind of film could help the viewers, the critics, everybody to have a better understanding of what is going on in our contemporary, difficult world.”

Much attention has also been placed on the fact that there is only one film directed by a woman among the 21 competing for its top prize, the Golden Lion.

“It’s a big problem, of course,” Barbera said. “I’m completely aware of the fact that there is a lot to do to give women the place that they deserve in cinema.”

He explained that while the organizers saw many interesting films from women, and programmed many in the festival’s sidebars, they didn’t find films that were strong enough for the main competition. Barbera also said the festival is on the side of women in their battle for equal representation.

Some of the films premiering at Venice could emerge as Oscar contenders, including opening-night film “Ink,” a competition title starring Guy Pearce as Murdoch and Jack O’Connell as editor Larry Lamb. The film is an adaptation of James Graham’s acclaimed play.

Boyle earlier this year told the AP that he made “Ink” in the same way he made “Trainspotting” — they didn’t have much money, but they had a committed ensemble who rallied behind the idea and a breakout star. In “Trainspotting,” that was Ewan McGregor. In “Ink,” he said, it’s O’Connell.

“It’s this bed of people that you build the story around and from and they give support and succor to the idea but the big thing they bring is belief in the idea,” Boyle said. “For actors to do that, they have to hang around a lot. It’s all very well talking about ensemble pieces but ensemble means them hanging around a lot so that they can pop in.”

Boyle added: “I haven’t learned a great deal in 30 years and that’s probably a good thing.”

The festival will also get its Clooney moment when he receives a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.

“We decided to give him a Golden Lion because in a way he suffers from his own image, you know the seductive man, an image of beauty and so on,” Barbera said. “Sometimes people forget that he is a great actor, one of the greatest actors at the moment and a great filmmaker, a great director. So it’s a way to underline this.”

Later, 93-year-old Ellen Burstyn will get one as well.

The Venice Film Festival runs through Sept. 12.

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