Ghouls, Gotham And Gaga As Venice Film Festival Opens

The Venice Film Festival kicked off Wednesday with a devilish debut of Tim Burton's "Beetlejuice" sequel and a surge of star power for the glitzy competition on the sun-splashed Lido.

Lady Gaga, George Clooney, Daniel Craig, Julianne Moore and Brad Pitt are among the A-listers expected over the next 10 days in Italy's watery city for the world's longest-running movie festival, known as "La Mostra".

The return of big-budget Hollywood pizzazz -- after a low-key edition last year due to the Hollywood writers' strike -- was on full display Wednesday with the out-of-competition world premiere of "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice".

The film again features Michael Keaton as a chaos-causing ghoul, alongside Winona Ryder, Catherine O'Hara, Monica Bellucci and young star Jenna Ortega -- who sported a backless red gauze confection that matched the red carpet.

For Burton, the acclaimed aficionado of the strange and ghoulish, his latest fantastical romp into the afterlife was a project "from my heart".

"In the past few years I got a little bit disillusioned with the movie industry," Burton told journalists ahead of the opening.

"For me, this movie was reenergising, kind of getting back to the things that I love doing, the way I love doing it, the people I love doing it with," he said.

With "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice", Burton fans get to revisit the madcap world of his 1988 cult classic 36 years later.

The oddball family drama now sees Lydia (Ryder), who has become a TV host specialising in the paranormal, struggling to connect with her rebellious teenage daughter (Ortega), whose discovery of a mystery in the attic accidentally unleashes mayhem once again on the Deetz household.

The sequel's imaginative world includes demonic babies, a "Soul Train" transporting the dead to the afterlife to a groovy 1970s soundtrack, and a dingy basement waiting room where the recently departed await bureaucratic processing.

It also features a star turn from Bellucci, playing Delores, the avenging, soul-sucking ex-wife of Beetlejuice, who brandishes a stapler in a memorable opening scene.

"She's more than a monster, she's a creature," noted Bellucci wryly.

Asked by a reporter whether another sequel about the prankish, irreverent ghoul could be on the cards, Burton joked: "Well, let's do the math."

"It took 35 years (to do this sequel), I'll be over 100 (for a third). I guess it's possible -- medical science these days -- but I don't think so."

Wednesday's opening ceremony saw Sigourney Weaver presented with a lifetime achievement Golden Lion, with the "Alien" star calling the honour "jet fuel of encouragement".

The festival shifts tone on Thursday, when eyes turn to Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas in "Maria", Pablo Larrain's biopic about the opera diva's tormented life -- one of 21 films in contention for the top Golden Lion prize to be awarded September 7.

Also much anticipated is the dark psychological thriller "Joker: Folie a Deux", the sequel to US director Todd Phillips' 2019 Venice-winning film loosely based on the DC Comics characters and set in a gritty Gotham City.

The film brings back Joaquin Phoenix, who won an Oscar for his depiction of the failed clown descending into mental illness, this time paired with Lady Gaga as his sidekick and love interest Harley Quinn.

Bond star Daniel Craig stars in "Queer" from Italy's Luca Guadagnino, an adaptation of the William Burroughs novel set in 1940s Mexico City, while Australian director Justin Kurzel's "The Order" features Jude Law as an FBI agent investigating white supremacy in the Pacific Northwest.

Spain's Pedro Almodovar is back with his first full-length film in English, "The Room Next Door", with Moore and Tilda Swinton, while Nicole Kidman stars with Antonio Banderas in the erotic thriller "Babygirl" from Dutch director Halina Reijn.

The roster also includes US director Brady Corbet's "The Brutalist", featuring Adrien Brody as a Hungarian Jewish architect and a life-changing project.

Playing out of competition are two documentaries about the Ukraine war -- "Songs of Slow Burning Earth" by Ukrainian director Olha Zhurba and "Russians at War", in which Russian-Canadian filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova was embedded with a Russian army battalion in eastern Ukraine.

Sweden's Goran Hugo Olsson, meanwhile, said his documentary, "Israel Palestine on Swedish Television 1958-1989", based on 30 years of public broadcasting archives, was his "most painful film" to date.