Iraq war looms over US-heavy Venice film festival

LONDON, Aug 26 (Reuters) Two movies about the Iraq war and its impact on Americans back home are among 22 competition entries at the Venice Film Festival this year, lending political weight to a cinema showcase laden with Hollywood productions.

Paul Haggis' ''In the Valley of Elah'', starring Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron and Susan Sarandon, is the eagerly anticipated film based on the real-life murder of a young soldier who returned to the United States from Iraq.

It is up against Brian De Palma's ''Redacted'', which tells the story of a US army unit that persecutes an Iraqi family and also examines the way media cover the conflict.

Commentators said the speed with which events in Iraq are making it to the big screen reflected Hollywood's general opposition to the conflict and the technological advances that make film-making faster. But some preferred to wait.

''What is coming out now works with an immediate emotional impact, but I'm really interested in what's going to come out (on the Iraq war) in 15 years' time or so,'' said Jay Weissberg, a critic with trade publication Variety.

Also tackling topical issues in Venice are ''Michael Clayton'', starring George Clooney as a fixer who does a major corporation's dirty work, Italy's ''Il Dolce e L'Amaro'' about the mafia, and Egypt's ''Heya Fawda'' investigating police brutality.

The annual festival on the Lido waterfront, which opens on Wednesday and ends on September 8, is a key showcase of arthouse cinema and an early marker ahead of the Oscars in February.

Ang Lee's ''Brokeback Mountain'' won the festival's Golden Lion for best film in 2005, and went on to garner eight Oscar nominations. The long list of stars expected on the red carpet this year will be hoping to generate similar early buzz.

GEOGRAPHICAL GAPS Six competition films are listed as US productions and four as British, giving this year's festival an unusually strong English-language flavour.

''There is a great feast for the more independent side of Anglo-Saxon cinema, but there are also some major absences from the rest of the world,'' said Lee Marshall, film critic with Screen International, of the Venice line-up.

He argued that South America, southern Africa and some parts of Asia appeared to be under-represented in the main Venice competition as well as the series of sidebar selections.

The other US productions in competition are ''The Darjeeling Limited'' starring Owen Wilson and Bill Murray, ''The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford'' with Brad Pitt and ''I'm Not There'', in which Cate Blanchett is unusually cast as singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.

Britain's four entries include opening film ''Atonement'', based on Ian McEwan's acclaimed novel and starring Keira Knightley, and Kenneth Branagh's ''Sleuth'', a remake of the 1972 thriller based on a screenplay by Nobel laureate Harold Pinter.

And Lee is back with a Chinese-language World War Two spy thriller ''Lust, Caution''.

As well as the main competition, dozens more films are screened in Venice, the world's oldest film contest, as producers and performers vie for the attention of the world's media that descends on the narrow Lido strip each year.

Big out-of-competition names this year include Woody Allen, Colin Farrell, Richard Gere and Scarlett Johansson.

US director Tim Burton will also be honoured with a lifetime achievement award.

REUTERS KK RN1504