Three French films feature in competition at this year's Venice Mostra: "Twentynine Palms" by Bruno Dumont, "Les Sentiments" by Noémie Lvovsky and "Raja" by Jacques Doillon.
French co-productions are also included in this year's lineup, with "Alila" by Amos Gitai (MP Productions), "Le Cerf-volant" by Randa Chahal-Sabbag (Ognon Pictures), "Pornography" by Jan Jakob Kolsky (MACT) rubbing shoulders with Manoel de Oliveira's film, "A Talking Picture" (Gemini).
Another French film, "Monsieur Ibrahim et les Fleurs du Coran" by François Dupeyron will be screened out of competition and the Upstream Section will feature "Une place parmi les vivants" by Raoul Ruiz, "Vodka Lemon" by Hiner Saleem and "Le Soleil Assassiné" by Abdelkrim Balhoul.
The animated film "Le Chien, le général et les oiseaux" by Francis Nielsen will also be showcased in a special screening at the festival.
Festivalgoers will have the chance to discover the film "Variété française" by Frédéric Videau during International Critics' Week and, in the New Territories Section, "Retour à Kotelnitch" by writer Emmanuel Carrère, "On n'est pas des marques de vélo!" by Jean-Pierre Thorn, "Le Dernier des immobiles" by Nicolas Sornaga and the medium-length feature "Un fils," debut film by Amal Bedjaoui.
As well as French directors, numerous actors and actresses have already arrived in Venice to present their films, including Nathalie Baye, Isabelle Carré, Melvil Poupaud, David Wissak, Pascal Greggory, Christian Vadim and Ouassimi Embarek.
Agnès Varda is also in town to introduce her latest short film, "Le Lion volatil" at the fest, screened out of competition.
This year's award winners will be announced Saturday evening, September 6 by the festival jury, which includes director Pierre Jolivet. Omar Sharif, in Venice the screening of François Dupeyron's film, will be awarded a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in the movie industry.
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