Six Italian films in competition at Venice Festival

Six Italian films are in the running for the Golden Lion at this year's 80th annual Venice Film Festival from August 30 to September 9, artistic director Alberto Barbera and Biennale president Roberto Cicutto announced on Tuesday, Azernews reports, citing ANSA.

The films defending Italy's colours are 'Comandante' by Edoardo De Angelis starring Pierfrancesco Favino, which will have its would première as the opening film in competition; 'Io Capitano' by Matteo Garrone; 'Finalmente l'alba' by Saverio Costanzo; 'Enea' by Pietro Castellitto; 'Lubo' by Giorgio Diritti; and 'Adagio' by Stefano Sollima, again starring Favino alongside Toni Servillo and Valerio Mastandrea.

Foreign films in the competition line-up include Luc Besson's Dogma; Maestro, the second film directed by Bradley Cooper on the life story of composer Bernstein; Priscilla, Sofia Coppola's long-awaited new film on the true story of Elvis Presley's wife; The Killer, the new thriller by David Fincher starring Michael Fassbender; Poor Things by Yorgos Lantimos starring Emma Stone, a sort of female Frankenstein; El Conde by Pablo Larrain with a vampire Pinochet and Ferrari by Michael Mann with Adam Driver and Penelope Cruz.

New films by Woody Allen, Roman Polanski and Liliana Cavani will instead be showing out of competition.

In total there are 23 films in competition.