Italy hogged the limelight at the Venice film festival as Cinema Paradiso director Giuseppe Tornatore took to the red carpet Wednesday with the leading lights of his epic Sicilian drama Baaria. Fellow Sicilians Francesco Scianna and Margareth Made, the stars in a cast of thousands that included some 35,000 extras, accompanied Tornatore into the gala opening-night screening. Giovanni Gambino, who played the lead character Peppino as a child, was with them. The first Italian opener in two decades at the grande dame of international film festivals is a love saga set in the town where the Oscar-winning Cinema Paradiso director grew up. Sounds, people, frustrations, dreams, happiness, challenges - I thought all of these themes could be turned into a movie, Tornatore told a news conference after the press screening at the 66th Mostra in the lagoon city. Also attending the gala was Pier Silvio Berlusconi, son of the Italian prime minister and vice president of the family media empire Mediaset. Jury chief Ang Lee of Taiwan accompanied his team on the carpet, and French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterand was also on hand to help kick off the 11-day festival. Lee s Brokeback Mountain won the Academy Award as well as the Golden Lion here, and he came back to the lagoon city two years later to win it again with Lust, Caution in 2007. Lending a touch of Hollywood glam to the evening was Eva Mendes, who stars with Nicolas Cage in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans directed by Werner Herzog. The German director insists it is not a remake of Abel Ferrara s 1992 cult thriller, Bad Lieutenant, set in New York. Tornatore s Baaria is a sentimental journey to his Sicilian hometown in an epic covering three generations. He said turning 60 had finally pushed him to complete a long-planned project, which spans the Fascist period, World War II, the rise of the Italian Communist Party and the first decades of the post-war era. Ennio Morricone, who scored the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone, wrote the soundtrack for Baaria more than 20 years after that of Cinema Paradiso, which won the Oscar for best foreign film in 1989. The festival will showcase US directors on Thursday with Life during Wartime by cult filmmaker Todd Solondz, who won the International Critics Prize in Cannes for Happiness (1998). Life During Wartime starring Demi Moore, Paul Reubens, Paul Dano, Hope Davis and Faye Dunaway is a dark comedy involving intersecting love stories. Next up is The Road by John Hillcoat, a post apocalyptic thriller based on a best-selling novel by Cormac McCarthy, a drama in which a father takes desperate steps to ensure the survival of his son. In all more than 80 films will be presented at the prestigious festival, which has a strong American presence both in and out of competition. Hollywood heart-throb George Clooney stars with Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey in Men Who Stare at Goats, set in Iraq, and Matt Damon stars in Steven Soderbergh s comedy The Informant! Three Egyptian films are participating in this year's edition: Ahmed Maher's "The Traveler starring Omar Sharif, Yousry, Kamla Abou Zekri's "Wahed-Sefr (One-Zero) and Nasrallah's "Ehky ya Schahrazade (Schahrazade, Tell Me a Story), which was screened Wednesday. The Wrestler, with resurgent American actor Mickey Rourke, won the Golden Lion last year.
