ROME: Offbeat American film-makers the Coen Brothers were the surprise entry in the 2018 Venice Film festival line-up, unveiled on Wednesday, making their new western a contender for the Golden Lion award.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is competing for the coveted gong alongside 20 other films featuring a raft of Hollywood stars, including Ryan Gosling, Natalie Portman and Willem Dafoe.

Starring Tim Blake Nelson, James Franco and Liam Neeson, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs features six tales about the wild west narrated by Joel and Ethan Coen.

The movie is one of two westerns on show in Venice, with French director Jacques Audiard’s The Sisters Brothers starring Joaquin Pheonix and Jake Gyllenhaal also up for the top prize. It is also one of several films being shown in Venice to have been picked up by streaming service Netflix.

The star-studded festival begins on Aug 29, kicking off with First Man — the new film from Oscar-winning director of La La Land Damien Chazelle. The film, which stars Canadian star Ryan Gosling, follows the life of astronaut Neil Armstrong in the years leading up to 1969, when he became the first man to walk on the moon.

One of the festival’s most eagerly-awaited events will be the out-of-competition world premiere of Orson Welles’ final and previously unfinished film, The Other Side Of The Wind.

The film is a satire of the passing of classic Hollywood film-making and the arrival of the American new wave in the 1970s.

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2018