The 69th Venice Film Festival opened here on Wednesday with Venice-regular Indian director Mira Nair's political thriller which explores life changes of a young Pakistani man rising through the ranks on Wall Street in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
"The Reluctant Fundamentalist" was chosen to "highlight the growing role of female creativity in all spheres of culture and contemporary society," said Alberto Barbera, the director of this year's Venice Film Festival.
Female influence is an important theme of the festival, during which people will see multiple activities to promote awareness on female contribution to world cinema.
Nevertheless, Nair's movie has a lot more to offer.
"I made the movie to promote dialogue between West and East, and I hope it will help to break the wall between different cultures, races and religions,"said Nair at the press conference before the opening of the event.
"For myself, I felt equal intimacy to both cultures," said the director who has lived in New York for many years.
The movie, adapted from a very popular book of the same tile, would "provide much food for thought," said Barbera.
The Lido island, where the event is staged, is now in a buzz with well-known directors, actors and actress.
However, big-names like George Clooney, Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp did not appear in the red carpet show in the evening as past years. The organizers seem to be focusing more on the discovery of new faces, which they hope will shot to stardom from Venice, a tradition the festival is long proud of.
This year's festival will feature 18 movies in the competition rounds, with dozens more appearing in out-of-competition and Horizon sessions.
No Chinese film will enter this year's competition session. Barbera cited many reasons, saying it is impossible for all countries in the world to appear in the competition list, although he admitted that China had a"great" film industry.
"I'm sure that next year, Chinese movies will come in competition," he said.
