Venice (AFP)

French stars Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche, in the family drama of Japan's Hirokazu Kore-Eda, will open a promising but controversial 76th Venice Film Festival on Wednesday night, due in part to the selection of "J'accuse" by Roman Polanski.

"The Truth", in competition for the Golden Lion, and in which also plays Ethan Hawke, marks the return behind the camera of Kore-Eda, a year after his Palme d'Or in Cannes for "A family affair" .

For his first film shot in France, he staged Catherine Deneuve in the role of a great actress who has complicated relationships with her daughter, played by Juliette Binoche, between hidden truths and unacknowledged resentment.

The opening ceremony will launch at 19H00 (17H00 GMT) the competition of a festival that will not miss stars, from Robert De Niro to Johnny Depp via Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas.

This 76th edition, with 21 films to be decided by a jury chaired by the Argentine director Lucrecia Martel, will focus on Hollywood productions, confirming the love story between Venice and the United States.

The Mostra has in recent years asserted itself as a launching pad in the Oscar race for films like "Gravity" by Alfonso Cuaron or "La la land" by Damien Chazelle, then crowned by several statuettes.

This year, it is the long awaited "Ad Astra", a space odyssey by James Gray, or "Joker", superhero movie by Todd Phillips, who could take over the torch.

Brad Pitt incarnates in the first an astronaut who ventures to the confines of the solar system in search of his father disappeared, while Joaquin Phoenix camps in the second the famous nemesis of Batman.

Another American film in the running, Steven Soderbergh's thriller "The Laundromat", one of the two Netflix films in competition, will look at the Panama Papers crisis, with Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas. Noah Baumbach's "Marriage Story", another Netflix film, tells the story of a breakup in love with Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson.

- "Deliberate indifference?" -

But while the American platform last year took center stage in Venice, with the Golden Lion awarded to "Roma" by Alfonso Cuaron, it is this year more the selection in competition of Roman Polanski, for his film "J'accuse", which provokes controversy.

Several voices were raised to criticize the presence of this historical thriller dedicated to the Dreyfus Affair, with Jean Dujardin.

A choice that outrages feminists, while the 86-year-old French-Polish filmmaker, who was banned from the Academy of Oscars last year, is still being prosecuted by the American courts for the rape of a teenager in 1977.

Another controversial subject is the presence in a parallel section of "American Skin", the new film by the American director of "The Birth of a Nation", Nate Parker, acquitted in 2011 of the rape of a student. This case had grown in 2016 after the revelation of her suicide.

"We all know that the world has changed after #MeToo," Melissa Silverstein, founder of the Women and Hollywood lobby group, told AFP. "The question I ask is + is it a lack of consciousness or a deliberate indifference?"

The Festival was also attacked on the low number of women in competition: only two, the Saudi Haifaa Al-Mansour (who had presented "Wadjda" in Venice in 2012) with "The Perfect Candidate" and the Australian Shannon Murphy with " Babyteeth ".

Among the major film directors present on the Lido, the French Olivier Assayas will come on his side to present "Wasp Network", on the true story of five Cuban spies during the Castro period.

His compatriot Robert Guédiguian will be there with "Gloria Mundi", with Ariane Ascaride and Jean-Pierre Daroussin.

This 76th edition of the Mostra, which will be held from August 28 to September 7, will also welcome Canadian Atom Egoyan for "Guest of Honor", Colombian Ciro Guerra for "Waiting For The Barbarians", with Johnny Depp, and Chinese Lou Ye for "Saturday fiction", with Gong Li.

© 2019 AFP