With a glittering red carpet and a splendid line-up of films and film stars, 76th Venice Film Festival is underway. The jury this year comprises of Piers Handling, Marry Haron, Stacy Martin, Rodrigo Prieto, Shinya Tsukamoto, and Paolo Virzi; with 'Zama' filmmaker Lucrecia Martel as the jury President.

The film festival will showcase films from all around the world, in categories such as Out of Competition, Horizons, and Sconfini. The main draw for the festival will be the Competition Section, featuring films such as 'Ad Astra', 'The Laundromat', 'Marriage Story' and the wild card 'Joker' hoping to test the waters before their Oscar campaign kicks-off.

Indian representation in the competition will come from Sanal Kumar Sasidharan's 'Shadow of Water' in Orizzonnti Competition and Gitanjali Rao's 'Bombay Rose' in the Venice Critics Week.

The Venice Classics Section will bring now restored masterpieces such as David Cronenberg's 'Crash' (1996), Federico Fellini's 'The White Sheikh' (1952), and Martin Scorcese's 'New York, New York' (1977) to the audience.

Hirokazu Kore'eda's 'The Truth' starring Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, Ludivine Sagnier, and Ethan Hawke opened the festival yesterday. The film is a story of a stormy reunion that occurs between an actress and her daughter after the actress publishes her memoirs.

The festival will close on September 7 with Giuseppe Capotondi's 'The Burnt Orange Heresy' , starring Claes Bang, Elizabeth Debicki, Mick Jagger, and Donald Sutherland.