`The Cheating Family` Competes at Venice Film Festival

Will `The Cheating Family` be able to repeat its domestic success at the Venice Film Festival? The 60th Venice Film Festival is set to kick off on Lido Island in Venice on Aug. 27, with Woody Allen`s new comedy `Anything Else.`

Some 250 movies, many of them world premieres, will be screened for 11 days, including feature films at the main competition and at the experimental "Upstream" section.

Korean movies has won recognition in Venice – Actress Gang Su-yeon won the best actress award in 1987 with `The Surrogate Womb,` and director Lee Chang-dong and actress Mun So-ri won the best director and the new face actress respectively last year with `The Oasis.`

Twenty feature films including `The Cheating Family` will vie for the Golden Lion top prize to be awarded on September 6. Also at the main `Venice 60` competition are Manoel de Oliviera`s `Talking Picture` (Portugal), which stars John Malcovich and Cathrine Denobe, Magarete fon Trota`s `Rogense Tras` (Germany) and Winter Burtum`s `Code 46` (Britain).

From Asia, four films including Gitano Dakeshi`s `Jatoichi` (Japan) and Carrol Lye`s `The Landscape of Dream` (Hong Kong) will compete at the main section. `The Cheating Family` will be open to reporters on Sept. 3 and to moviegoers on 4. `The Butterfly,` starring Kim Min-jong and Kim Jung-eun, will also be introduced at the critics section.

European movies are noticeable throughout the competition, as Hollywood movies mostly remain at the non-competition section aiming at the Academy. `21 Gram`, American-Mexican joint work directed by Mexico`s Alehandro Gonzales Inaritu, is the only American movie at the main competition.

At the non-competition section, there are many high-profile movies including Bernardo Bertolucci`s `Dreamers` and Ridley Scott`s `Matchstick Men`. The Cohen Brothers came up with `The Unforgivable Atrocity,` which stars George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Billy Bon Thorton and Jeffrey Rush.

In the experimental `Upstream` section, 18 feature movies will vie for the honor including Denmark`s Las fon Trier`s `Five Obstacles` and Sophia Copula`s, daughter of Francis Copular, `Lost in Transition`.

Such Hollywood big name stars as Omar Sharif, who will pick up the achievement award, George Clooney, Nicole Kidman, Anthony Hopkins, Sean Penn and Antonio Banderas are set to tread the red carpet.

gskim@donga.com