The 2014 Venice film Festival lineup was announced in Rome Thursday, setting up the latest edition of the oldest film festival in the world. The competition lineup includes new films from acclaimed directors and starring the A-list of Hollywood.
One of the most anticipated films of the festival will be Manglehorn, a new work from David Gordon Green and starring Al Pacino. Its competition includes Abel Ferrara’s biopic Pasolini about Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini with Willem Dafoe, notes The Hollywood Reporter.
Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look of Silence, Roy Andersson’s long-titled A Pigeon Say on a Branch Reflecting on Existence will also be up for awards.
The out-of-competition line-up will likely interest Americans visiting the festival. Pacino also stars in Barry Levinson’s The humbling, while Bill Murray can be seen in Olive Kitteridge. Ethan Hawke stars in Good Kill while Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson both star in Peter Bogdanovich’s She’s Funny That Way.
Nymphomaniac Volume II from Lars Von Trier will also be screened out-of-competition.
The festival will kick off with Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Birdman on Aug. 27.
“You have to trust me: the films are of very high quality,” film festival director Alberto Barbera said of the line-up at a press conference at the St. Regis Grand Hotel in Rome this morning.
The 71st annual Venice Film Festival runs from Aug. 27 to Sept. 6.
image of Al Pacino courtesy of Jennifer Graylock/INFphoto.com