The China Mail - Showtime for Venice Film Festival, with monsters, aliens, Clooney and Roberts

Julia Roberts and George Clooney are the biggest names expected at the 82nd edition of the world's longest-running festival, with a cavalcade of respected film directors, from Kathryn Bigelow and Guillermo del Toro to Jim Jarmusch, all due to arrive on the sandy Lido across the Venice lagoon.

Alongside the stars and glitzy atmosphere are films that promise to provoke debate, such as the Gaza film "The Voice of Hind Rajab" from two-time Oscar nominee Kaouther Ben Hania.

Before the start of the festival, a group of Italian film professionals called on organisers not to remain silent on the Gaza war, and a protest on the Lido is scheduled for Saturday.

The festival's artistic director, Alberto Barbera, told AFP he was seeing "a return to reality" from filmmakers.

Directors today are "reflecting on the major problems that afflict us daily on a global level, from wars to the return of nuclear anxiety, obviously the occupation of Gaza and Palestine but also the many dictatorships resurging throughout the world", Barbera said, speaking from the red carpet.

"The film festival is obviously not closed in a bubble... it's open to considering everything happening around us."

- Identity crisis -

The smorgasbord of films opens Wednesday with the premiere of "La Grazia", a drama from Paolo Sorrentino, best known outside Italy for 2013's "The Great Beauty", and again starring his frequent collaborator, actor Toni Servillo.

During the opening ceremony, Francis Ford Coppola will present German daredevil director Werner Herzog ("Grizzly Man", "Fitzcarraldo") with a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement for his body of more than 70 dramas and documentaries over a 60-year career.

Herzog's latest documentary, "Ghost Elephants", about a lost herd in Angola, will premiere out of competition.

But eyes quickly turn to Hollywood's favourite leading man, Clooney, who on Thursday promises to electrify fans for the premiere of Netflix-produced comedy "Jay Kelly", directed by Noah Baumbach, in which he plays a top Hollywood actor with an identity crisis.

On the same night is sci-fi comedy "Bugonia" from Yorgos Lanthimos, which stars Emma Stone as a pharmaceutical executive kidnapped by people who mistake her for an alien.

The duo's fourth feature together promises more deranged fun this year, after the hilarious Frankenstein reworking "Poor Things" took Venice's top prize in 2023.

Roberts, meanwhile, will appear at Venice for the first time in her career on Friday, appearing in the out-of-competition cancel culture drama "After the Hunt", from Italy's Luca Guadagnino, who returns to the festival after last year's "Queer" with Daniel Craig.

Venice is increasingly a key launching pad for cinema success, with its winners often going on to Oscar glory, such as "Nomadland" or "Joker" in previous years.

The arduous task of deciding who deserves the top prize in the main competition on September 6 will go to two-time Oscar winner and "Sideways" director Alexander Payne and his jury.

- Return to Venice -

The flurry of worldwide premieres includes high-profile entries such as Del Toro's big-budget remake of "Frankenstein", starring Oscar Isaac, or Bigelow's political thriller "A House of Dynamite", starring Idris Elba.

In one of the boldest casting choices, British actor Jude Law will try his hand at Vladimir Putin in Olivier Assayas's "The Wizard of the Kremlin", while Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson portrays mixed martial arts champion Mark Kerr in "The Smashing Machine" from Benny Safdie.

Fans of Park Chan-wook will be cheered by the long-awaited return of the South Korean director to Venice after 20 years.

Park was last on the Lido in 2005, when he won two awards with "Lady Vengeance".

Now, the cinematic showman is competing for a Golden Lion with "No Other Choice", a thriller about a laid-off worker who becomes an axe murderer, killing his competitors.

Jarmusch marks his first time in Venice's main lineup with "Father Mother Sister Brother", bringing together Cate Blanchett, Adam Driver and Tom Waits, while Taiwan-born model and actress Shu Qi makes her directorial debut with "Nuhai (Girl)".

To be screened next week is Ben Hania's highly anticipated retelling of the true story of a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed with her family by Israeli forces last year while trying to flee Gaza.

The film uses the real audio recording of the girl pleading for help to emergency services.

T.Luo--ThChM