Almodovar, Delpero in competition at Venice

(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 2 - Pedro Almodovar's first English-language film The Room Next Door and the second of the five Italian contenders for the Golden Lion, Maura Delpero's Vermiglio (Vermilion), are set to debut at the Venice Film Festival Monday.
    The Room Next Door stars Julianne Moore as an author of semi-autobiographical novels and fellow Oscar winner Tilda Swinton, an Amodovar habitueé, as a war reporter, who meet up again after many years and try to rebuild their connection as the latter, suffering from terminal cancer, asks the former to help her end her life. John Tuturro also stars.
    Vermiglio, the director says, "is a war story without bombs or big battles, in the ironclad logic of the mountains which every day remind man how small he is".
    Other protagonist of the day will be Peter Weir who is getting a career Lion, accompanied by the showing of one of his films, Master and Commander, and Claude Lelouch who is getting the Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award and is presenting out of competition his latest film, Finalement with Kad Merad. (ANSA).