First Italian film debuts at 81st Venice Film Fest

(ANSA) - ROME, AUG 31 - The first of five Italian films competing for an award at the 81st edition of the Venice Film Festival is debuting on Saturday - Gianni Amelio's Campo di Battaglia (Battlefield), set during World War One.
    "It's not a war movie, which often becomes an adventure at the cinema, but a film on war", said the director.
    "It is an extremely emotional film where the three protagonists experience a very strong story", added D'Amelio of the movie, starring Alessandro Borghi, Gabriel Montesi and Federica Rosellini.
    Films in competition making their Venice debut on Saturday include The Order by Justin Kurzel, with Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult, inspired by the true story of criminal actions carried out in the US by a white suprematist group created by Robert Jay Mathews in the 1980s; social drama Leurs Enfants Après Eux by French siblings Zoran and Ludovic Boukherma, based on a novel by Nicolas Mathieu, which won the 2018 Goncourt Prize.
    Meanwhile films Out of Competition include Amos Gitai in Why War - a story focusing on correspondence between Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud on the roots of war and the possible explanation behind the cruelty of conflicts.
    Meanwhile on Friday night, Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson starred in Venice at the premiere of Halina Reijn's kinky Babygirl in which Kidman plays a high-powered CEO who has a secret affair with her intern (Dickinson).
    Babygirl fired up the Venice audience with the public erupting into a standing ovation as the end credits rolled on the film at the Sala Grande Theatre. (ANSA).