The Venice Film Festival opened with a screening of Birdman, and stars Michael Keaton, Emma Stone and Edward Norton were with director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu on the red carpet. Birdman is about a film actor struggling to put a show on in a theatre.
US actress Emma Stone signs autographs during the red carpet for the movie Birdman
Theatrical ego is a big part of the plot. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, the director, said, “Film itself is a coalition of egos, not only the actors, directors, every department and everybody involved mostly have something to say and has a point of view and a creative force and the job as a director, at least I can speak about me, is to kill them all, no, to manage all that and to get what is best of each of them. To provoke them, to bring the best and then to combine and to guide and to not lose yourself in so many voices.”
The Cut by director Fathi Akin, which is in competition at the festival, looks at one of the most painful and contentious chapters in Turkish history: the Armenian genocide.
Tsili, another film in the competition, written and directed by Amos Gitai is about a woman hiding in the forest to escape being deported to an extermination camp.