The 2005 Venice Film Festival, which will open on August 31st with Tsui Hark's "Seven Swords," will offer a record eleven films from the United States in its lineup, according to festival director Marco Mueller. The fest head unveiled the roster for the 62nd Venice fest Thursday morning, alongside Venice Biennale president David Croff, at a press conference in Rome, Italy. The fest will close on September 10th with a screening of Peter Ho-sun Chan's "Perhaps Love."

Among the nineteen new films in competition this year include Laurent Cantet's "Vers Le Sud" with Charlotte Rampling, Patrice Chéreau's "Gabrielle" starring Isabelle Huppert, George Clooney's "Goodnight and Good Luck" starring David Strathairn, Clooney, Jeff Daniels, Robert Downey Jr, and Patricia Clarkson, Abel Ferrara's latest "Mary" starring Juliette Binoche, Matthew Modine and Forest Whitaker, Terry Gilliam's "The Brothers Grimm" starring Matt Damon, Heath Ledger, Jonathan Pryce and Monica Bellucci, Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain" with Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway, John Madden's "Proof" starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Gyllenhaal, and Anthony Hopkins, Fernando Meirelles' "The Constant Gardener" with Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz, and John Turturro's "Romance and Cigarettes" starring James Gandolfini, Kate Winslet, Susan Sarandon, and Christopher Walken.

- posted by Ally 
- credits: Indie Wire
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TORONTO (Hollywood Reporter) - Boosting its star wattage, the Toronto International Film Festival on Tuesday announced world premieres for Curtis Hanson's "In Her Shoes," starring Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette, and the Keira Knightley starrer "Pride and Prejudice."

Toronto also gave the nod for the North American premiere of Miramax's "Proof," which reunites director John Madden and Gwyneth Paltrow after their Oscar-winning collaboration on "Shakespeare in Love." The festival runs Sept. 8-15.

All three Hollywood drawing cards will receive high-profile gala screenings at Roy Thomson Hall in downtown Toronto ahead of their fall theatrical releases.

Joe Wright's "Pride and Prejudice," based on the Jane Austen novel, stars Knightley as a young lady jousting with Darcy, a would-be suitor played by Matthew Macfadyen. Brenda Blethyn and Donald Sutherland play her parents. It is set for a Sept. 23 release in the U.S. via Focus Features.

Also bowing in Toronto is "In Her Shoes," ahead of an Oct. 7 theatrical release by 20th Century Fox.

Based on the Jennifer Weiner novel, "In Her Shoes" features two sisters (Diaz, Collette) who are polar opposites in love and work, but who reconnect after discovering a maternal grandmother, played by Shirley MacLaine.

Toronto also has booked "Proof" for a North American premiere. Based on the David Auburn play, Madden's latest work features Paltrow reprising her stage role as a young woman haunted by the death of her father, an unstable math genius played by Anthony Hopkins. The film also stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Hope Davis. Auburn also penned the feature film version of his Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play.

Toronto previously announced gala screenings for three homegrown movies -- Deepa Mehta's "Water," David Cronenberg's "A History of Violence" and Atom Egoyan's "Where the Truth Lies."

The festival also booked Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain"; Jamie Babbit's "The Quiet"; Anand Tucker's "Shopgirl," starring Claire Danes and Steve Martin; and Jason Reitman's "Thank You For Smoking," which stars Robert Duvall and Katie Holmes.

- posted by Ally 
- credits: Yahoo! News
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Variety reports that Warner Bros. has signed David Fincher for two projects: "Zodiac" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button".

"Zodiac" will star Robert Downey Jr., Jake Gyllenhaal and Anthony Edwards and is based on Robert Graysmith's books "Zodiac" and "Zodiac Unmasked."

Gyllenhaal will portray Graysmith in the film. Graysmith wrote the two in-depth investigative books on the Zodiac Killer, a man who hunted down victims in San Francisco in the '60s and '70s, and to this day has never been caught. Author/Zodiac researcher Graysmith claims he knows the killer's identity.

- posted by Ally 
- credits: Cinema Confidential
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