Venice Film: Last News

Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa nabbed another career honor Sunday, winning the Venice Film Festival's best director award for Wife of a Spy, the first period drama of his prolific filmography. Set in 1940 Kobe, Japan, the film stars Issey Takahashi (Kill Bill, Shin Godzilla) as a debonair silk merchant whose cosmopolitan world view is on a collision course with Japan's advancing militarism and stifling social conformity.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentHigh-profile doc “The Rossellinis,” described as a tongue-in-cheek autobiographical look at the descendants of iconic Italian director Roberto Rossellini’s extended family, is among the standout world premieres in the lineup of the upcoming Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week.Directed by Roberto Rossellini’s grandson, Alessandro Rossellini, the doc is unspooling out of competition and will close the separately-run Venice section that will feature seven first works in competition. It’s not yet know whether Isabella Rossellini will be on the Lido to promote the film.The competition titles — all first works as well as world premieres — include “Topside,” the feature film debut of U.S.