Venice film festival gears up to award masked Golden Lion winnerEighteen films are vying for the top Golden Lion at the Venice film festivalVENICE (ITALY) - The Venice film festival will present its coveted Golden Lion award Saturday after a competition marked by facemasks and missing stars but billed as a relaunch of global cinema, bruised by the coronavirus crisis. "The Venice Film Festival has given us the opportunity and the privilege to start dreaming again," Italian director Emma Dante said in Ciak magazine, distributed daily at the festival. - High-profile 'test' -Normally attended by more than 10,000 film industry executives, critics, journalists and moviegoers, the Venice festival was the first major international movie competition to go ahead after others around the world, including its main rival, the Cannes Film Festival, were cancelled. - 'A miracle' -Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep and Scarlett Johansson were among those to have supplied the celebrity panache at last year's festival. Last year, "Joker" by US director Todd Phillips took home the Golden Lion, while Roman Polanski won the runner-up Grand Jury prize for "An Officer and a Spy."

Source: Bangkok Post September 12, 2020 03:00 UTC