69th Venice International Film Festival will run from August 29th 2012

Venice International Film Festival was founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata in 1932. Perhaps no one understood the power an international film festival could have better than Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata; commissioned president of the Venice Biennale by Mussolini.  Volpi expanded the Biennale in 1932 to include the Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica. The Venice Film Festival is the oldest film festival in the world. The festival takes place every year in late August or early September in Venice. The 69th Venice International Film Festival, organized by La Biennale di Venezia, will run at Venice Lido August 29th through September 8th, 2012, directed by Alberto Barbera. The aim of the Festival is to raise awareness and promote all the various aspects of international cinema in all its forms: as art, entertainment and as an industry, in a spirit of freedom and tolerance. The Festival includes retrospectives and homages to major figures as a contribution towards raising awareness of the history of cinema. Three International Juries will assign the official awards of the 69th Venice Film Festival: Venezia 69 (  Michael Mann President,  Marina Abramovic,  Laetitia Casta,  Peter Ho-Sun Chan,  Ari Folman,  Matteo Garrone,  Ursula Meier,  Samantha Morton,  Pablo Trapero-members) ,Orizzonti(  Pierfrancesco Favino President,  Sandra den Hamer,  Runa Islam,  Jason Kliot, Nadine Labaki,  Milcho Manchevski,  Amir Naderi-members), Opera Prima (  Shekhar Kapur- President,  Michel Demopoulos,  Isabella Ferrari,  Matt Reeves,  Bob Sinclar –members). For the first time in the history of the Venice International Film Festival, 10 feature-length films and 13 short films from the Orizzonti section will be available for viewing (  the virtual theatre online, reservations for 500 “seats”) in streaming all over the world concurrently with the official screenings on the Lido of the 69th Venice International Film Festival (29 August – 8 September 2012). The American director, screenwriter, and producer Michael Cimino will be honoured with the Persol 2012 award of the Venice International Film Festival which aims to celebrate a legend of international filmmaking. The main sections are Venezia 69 -International competition of feature films, presented as world premieres, Out of Competition -Important works by directors already established in previous editions of the Festival, Orizzonti -The new trends in world cinema ,«80!» -Retrospective section on rare films from the Biennale’s Historical Archives, Venice Classics -A selection of restored classic films and documentaries on cinema, and  Special Screening .In addition to these sections there would be International Critics’ Week , a series of 7 films – debut works – independently organized by a commission nominated by the SNCCI and Giornate degli Autori - Venice Days  an Independent section promoted by the Italian Association of Filmmakers ANAC and 100 Autori.