Rabin biopic to vie for top prize at Venice Film Festival

‘Rabin, The Last Day,’ Amos Gitai’s depiction of the PM’s assassination, bids for prestigious Golden Lion

By AP and ToI Staff 29 July 2015, 5:39 pm

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A memorial candle shines at the ceremony commemorating the 17th anniversary of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination at the president's residence in Jerusalem, October 25, 2012 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

A biopic portraying the final day in the life of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin will contend in this year’s Venice Film Festival.

“Rabin, The Last Day,” Israeli director Amos Gitai’s depiction of the 1995 assassination of Rabin, will compete among the 21-strong competition lineup announced Wednesday.

The Festival will see Kristen Stewart in a sci-fi romance, a war story with Idris Elba and a thriller starring Tilda Swinton and Dakota Johnson.

Eddie Redmayne, Johnny Depp and Jake Gyllenhaal are also slated for the film showcase, which takes over the Italian maritime city’s Lido island for 11 days in September.

Director Amos Gitai (Courtesy Amos Gitai)

Competition for the top Golden Lion prize also includes Drake Doremus’ futuristic “Equals,” with Stewart and Nicholas Hoult; Luca Guadagnino’s “A Bigger Splash,” with Swinton, Johnson and Ralph Fiennes; and Cary Fukunaga’s African child-soldier story “Beasts of No Nation,” starring Elba.

Also among the contenders: Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson’s animated feature “Anomalisa”; musician Laurie Anderson’s “Heart of a Dog”; and “The Danish Girl,” from “The King’s Speech” director Tom Hooper, which stars Oscar winner Redmayne as a transgender woman in the 1920s.

There are also new films from Canada’s Atom Egoyan (“Remember,” a Nazi-hunting thriller starring Christopher Plummer and Martin Landau), Russia’s Aleksandr Sokurov (the Paris-set “Francofonia”) and Italy’s Marco Bellocchio (vampire-themed “Blood of My Blood”).

Out-of-competition entries — which are not in the running for prizes — include Scott Cooper’s “Black Mass,” starring Johnny Depp as Boston gangster Whitey Bulger, and Thomas McCarthy’s “Spotlight,” which features Michael Keaton as the editor of a Boston Globe team investigating clerical sex abuse.

The 72nd Venice festival opens September 2 with the world premiere of Baltasar Kormakur’s mountain drama “Everest,” starring Gyllenhaal and Robin Wright. It runs to September 12, when a jury led by Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron will award the Golden Lion for best film and other prizes.