The 69th Venice film festival, the cinema mostra, is running from August 29 to September 8, and will feature 51 world premieres. The festival kicked off with the arrival of stars on water taxis for an art house dominated line-up dealing with issues from religious extremism to economic crisis.

First up at the world’s oldest film festival was the showing of Mira Nair’s “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” – a political thriller about a soulful young Pakistani man torn between Wall Street ambitions and the call of his homeland. - Photos by Agencies