The Venice Film Festival is set to
kick off Wednesday night when French screen diva Catherine
Deneuve receives a career Golden Lion.
Arriving at the Lido for the 79th edition of the world's oldest
film fest, the 79-year-old actress told reporters she had "never
been sexy or an icon" and had no advice for aspiring actresses.
Deneuve was also reticent about a pin with the Ukrainian flag
she was wearing on her chest, saying "I don't want to say
anything because my words could be misunderstood".
The first film in competition is American director Noah
Baumbach's White Noise.
Based on a book by Don DeLillo, White Noise stars Adam Driver,
Greta Gerwig and Don Cheadle and examines an American family's
quest for happiness in an uncertain world.
"It is a great honour to open the 79th Venice Film Festival with
White Noise," said Festival Director Alberto Barbera.
"It was worth waiting for the certainty that the film was
finished to have the pleasure to make this announcement.
"Adapted from the great Don DeLillo novel, Baumbach has made an
original, ambitious and compelling piece of art, which plays
with measure on multiple registers: dramatic, ironic, satirical.
"The result is a film that examines our obsessions, doubts, and
fears as captured in the 1980's, yet with very clear references
to contemporary reality."
Baumbach is returning to the festival after premiering Marriage
Story in Venice in 2019.
That film, also starring Driver alongside Scarlett Johansson as
a warring couple going through a coast-to-coast divorce, won the
2020 Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Laura Dern.
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