San Francisco Frontiers - Clooney honoured as Hollywood-light Venice Film Festival kicks off

The 65-year-old Oscar winner was called a "legend" by actress friend Laura Dern as she presented him with the gong in front of a star-studded audience at the start of the 83rd edition of the festival.

Clooney, accompanied by his lawyer wife Amal, was cheered by hundreds of well-wishers on the red carpet, while Dern read out tributes from past co-stars including Brad Pitt and Adam Sandler during the ceremony.

"When you start reflecting on the years, you realise you really didn't have a career as much as a series of happy accidents," Clooney told the audience.

Earlier at a press conference, the "Ocean's Eleven" star told journalists that the United States was currently a "kakistocracy, which is a country run by the least qualified people.

"I think maybe we have a kakistocracy right now, but we'll get through it," he added.

The issue of women representation in the film industry was also a major topic on day one of the festival after director Alberto Barbera chose only two women-directed films in the 21-strong main competition.

Actor-turned-director Maggie Gyllenhaal, head of the jury this year, openly questioned his choices during a press conference with Barbera earlier in the day.

"There's a systemic problem," she told reporters, referring to the difficulties many women have to get films financed and their preference for different topics to men.

"I really am walking in with a question as to why there's so few women in the main competition as filmmakers this year," she added.

- Hollywood ghosting -

Clooney provided some much-needed American razzle-dazzle, with Hollywood studios largely staying away from the event this year.

The US majors as well as streaming giants Amazon and Netflix also snubbed the Berlin and Cannes festivals earlier this year, Europe's other two biggest film events.

Although Venice might lack mass-market blockbusters, there is no shortage of larger-than-life subjects, with films about Elon Musk, Rupert Murdoch and the volatile Gallagher brothers from the Britpop band Oasis.

Running through September 12, the festival will also offer a strong lineup of independent films, including the main competition's only documentary -- "Naza" -- about the Israeli forces' killing of civilians in Gaza.

Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor won an Oscar for 2024's "No Other Land", which documented Israel's displacement of a Palestinian community in the occupied West Bank.

Opening the festival Wednesday is "Ink", about the ruthless rise of Rupert Murdoch to the top of the British media, from Britain's "Trainspotting" director Danny Boyle.

He is played by Australian heartthrob Guy Pearce who told reporters that he had spoken to Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth who reported that the right-wing tycoon was "very happy" about the casting decision.

- Stars attending -

Other much-awaited indie films include "Wild Horse Nine" from the director of "In Bruges", Martin McDonagh, starring John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell as eccentric CIA agents.

French director Florian Zeller's psychological thriller "Bunker" features real-life Spanish power couple Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem playing partners with a rocky marriage.

Ilya Khrzhanovsky's "DAU", a multi-year experimental film project about Soviet physicists, has also hit the headlines after being accused by Ukraine's government of having links "to the Russian state and its influence networks".

In a detailed rebuttal, Khrzhanovsky noted he renounced his Russian citizenship to protest the Ukraine war and said the film "is not an instrument of Russian state cultural policy.

"It is an artistic statement about the nature of totalitarian evil," he wrote on Facebook.

Also competing for the top Golden Lion prize is Venice veteran Werner Herzog, with his feature "Bucking Fastard" starring sisters Kate Mara and Rooney Mara.

Barbera also told AFP there were "no fewer than four films that deal with the Palestinian issue and the current situation in Iran" this year.

L.Nguyen--SFF