Ethan Hawke attends the premiere of Brooklyn's Finest. Hawke costars with Richard Gere and Wesley Snipes in the “cops and crooks” film directed by Antoine Fuqua.
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Actor Wesley Snipes and wife Nikki Park attend the premiere of his latest film, Brooklyn's Finest, at the Venice Film Festival. Snipes remains free to travel after he was sentenced to three years in prison for failure to pay his tax returns.
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George Clooney and Italian girlfriend Elisabetta Canalis are seen on September 8, 2009 in Venice, Italy. The Italian media have christened the gorgeous couple “the next Brad and Angelina.”
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She’s already been called the “Belle of the Festival” and there’s no wonder why. Eva Mendes stars as a high-class call girl in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, a crime thriller directed by Werner Herzog and co-starring Nicolas Cage as a crooked cop who becomes addicted to painkillers after injuring himself during Hurricane Katrina.
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Ewan McGregor attends The Men Who Stare At Goats premiere at the Venice Film Festival. A satire on U.S. military intelligence, the new film boasts a “tony cast on top of its game” including McGregor, George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, and Kevin Spacey.
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Actress Maria de Medeiros attends the photocall for Il Compleanno at the Palazzo del Casino on September 8. American audiences recognize her from Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. Her latest film is a family drama that takes place during a holiday.
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Cage traveled from New York, where he was filming The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Just before the screening of his film Bad Lieutenant, a wheelchair-bound female fan screamed “Nicolas vieni a darmi un bacio che io non posso muovermi" (Nicolas, come kiss me as I am unable to move!”) and the actor, much to the crowd’s delight, sweetly obliged.
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Brokeback Mountain and Taking Woodstock director Ang Lee is the jury president of the 66th Venice International Film Festival, and has twice won the prestigious Golden Lion award.
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The highly anticipated film version of Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic The Road made its debut in Venice and is a favorite for the Golden Lion award. Star Viggo Mortensen, walked the red carpet with newcomer (and breakout performer) Kodi Smit-McPhee.
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Few from the U.S. had heard her name before this weekend, but Maria Grazia Cucinotta made a memorable impression as the host of the festival. The Italian actress is well-known in Italy, and has starred in Il Postino and The World Is Not Enough.
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Author Salman Rushdie was accompanied by former model Carolann Javicoli at the opening of the festival.
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Since his extraordinary performance as the schizophrenic son of Kathy Bates in last year’s Revolutionary Road, Michael Shannon has been a wanted man in Hollywood. He stars as a murderer alongside Willem Dafoe and Chloe Sevigny in Werner Herzog’s My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? David Lynch produced the thriller that’s more psychologically terrifying than “blood, chainsaws, and gore,” said Herzog.
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British actress Jane Birkin decided to forego traditional red carpet attire (and the Birkin bag named after her) at the premiere of 36 Vues Du Pic Saint Loup at the Sala Grande during the 66th Venice Film Festival.
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The Training Day director, who's also helming the upcoming cop drama Brooklyn’s Finest, is one of the international jury members for the Venezia Opera Prima Prize.
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The Welcome to the Dollhouse director provided some much-needed color on the red carpet. His new low-budget film Life During Wartime, starring Ally Sheedy and Paul Dano, will premiere at the fest and compete for the Golden Lion.
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The heiress was joined by her boyfriend at the premiere of Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, produced by Reinhardt’s business partner Alan Polsky. Their jaunt to Venice was the second stop on a European vacation that also took them to Budapest to celebrate the launch of Hilton’s clothing line.
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Producer Harvey Weinstein attended the festival fresh off the success of Inglourious Basterds. His latest effort, as co-producer of Michael Moore’s controversial documentary Capitalism: A Love Story, is already earning early raves from Variety (“one of Moore’s best films”) and the audiences in Italy.
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The acclaimed director has two films competing for the Golden Lion this year, and his appearance is not without controversy. Herzog claims the film is not a remake of Abel Ferrara’s 1992 film starring Harvey Keitel, even saying that he’s never seen the original. Ferrara rebutted that the makers of the new version should “die in hell.” Herzog offered an olive branch at the festival, saying, "I would like to meet the man," and "I have a feeling that if we met and talked, over a bottle of whiskey, I should add, I think we could straighten everything out."
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The Coen brothers' regular attended the premiere of his film Prove Per Una Tragedia Siciliana, what he calls a “declaration of love for Sicily” and an exploration of his own roots in the country.
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A vision in white on the red carpet, Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton stars as a formerly proper wife who falls in love with her son’s friend in Lo Sono L’Amore (I Am Love). She called the work a “classic Italian film.”
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Matt Damon, seen here with wife Luciana Bozan Barroso at the premiere of The Informant!, ditched his Jason Bourne regimen and gained 30 pounds for his role in the film. The Steven Soderbergh-directed comedy revolves around Damon, an agribusiness executive whistle blower.
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