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Date: 01 September - 11

Twenty-three films will compete for the prestigious Golden Lion award at the world's oldest film festival, with director Quentin Tarantino leading the jury to decide who the winner will be. The central objective of the festival is to raise awareness and promote international cinema "in all its forms: as art, entertainment and as an industry, in a spirit of freedom and tolerance."

This year award-winning director Darren Aronofsky's (The Wrestler) film the Black Swan (starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis) will be opening the festival. Six years since The Brown Bunny, Vincent Gallo, eccentric film-maker, marks his return into the indie film circuit with his self-financed Promises Written on Water.

Other highlights include Kelly Reichardt's western drama Meek's Cuttoff and Greek born Athina Rachel Tsangari's Attenberg. The most anticipated film at this year's festival is Miral, the passion project of director Julian Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). The film (starring Hiam Abbass and Frieda Pinto) is set against the backdrop of the 1948 Palestine/Israeli conflict and tells the story of real-life Palestinian woman, Hind Hussein, who was responsible for rescuing 50 of the orphaned survivors of the Deir Yassin massacre after they were abandoned in Jerusalem and left to fend for themselves.

New work by FLAMIN-supported artists Isaac Julien and Emily Richardson are among the films selected for the Orizzonti section of the Venice Film Festival. Film-maker and Film London board member John Akomfrah will also be presenting his new film The Nine Muses in the same section.

www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/festival/