Stars including Angelina Jolie, Lady Gaga and Nicole Kidman are expected on the red carpet at Venice’s film festival this year, with 21 films competing for the coveted Golden Lion, organizers said Tuesday. Hollywood pals George Clooney and Brad Pitt will also be on the Lido island in Venice’s lagoon for the world’s oldest movie festival, running from August 28 to September 7. The most hotly awaited films include “Joker: Folie a deux” by director Todd Phillips, the sequel to “Joker”, once again starring Joaquin Phoenix—but this time alongside Lady Gaga.

Other hot tickets are “Maria” by Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain, in which Jolie plays Greek soprano Maria Callas during her final days, and Spanish director Pedro Almodovar’s latest—and his first film in English—“The Room Next Door”, starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore. Kidman will star in “Babygirl”, an erotic thriller by Dutch director Halina Reijn about a woman who swaps domestic boredom for a sadomasochistic relationship, while Jude Law plays an FBI agent in white supremacist circles in “The Order”, by Australian Justin Kurzel.

In light relief, Clooney and Pitt star as lone fixers forced to work together in out-of-competition action comedy “Wolfs” by American director Jon Watts. Five Italian films have made the cut, including “Queer”, the latest by Luca Guadagnino, starring former James Bond actor Daniel Craig in what festival director Alberto Barbera said was “the performance of his life”. Directors Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza are competing with “Sicilian Letters”, inspired by the real-life story of Sicilian mafia boss and fugitive Matteo Messina Denaro, and starring Elio Germano, Barbora Bobulova and Toni Servillo.

The 81st edition of the festival will also mark the return of the Brazilian Walter Salles -- 12 years after his last film—with “I’m Still Here”, based on the true story of a woman searching for her husband during the dictatorship. The jury will be chaired this year by French actress Isabelle Huppert. The festival will open with the out-of-competition film “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”, the sequel to Tim Burton’s iconic 1988 film, starring Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Willem Dafoe and Monica Bellucci. — AFP