Baaria to open Venice Film Festival

The organisers of the Venice Film Festival have settled on Baaria as its opener, which will mark the first Italian opening film in two decades.

Cinema Paradiso director Giuseppe Tornatore is behind the film, which is a coming-of-age biopic.

It is set in Tornatore's hometown of Bagheria, which is pronounced Baaria in the local dialect.

The $30 million (£18 million) budget made this one of Italy's most expensive films ever produced.

In a statement, the director described the film as his "most personal film," adding it is "an amusing and wistful story, of great loves and irresistible utopian dreams".

The 66th Venice Film Festival will run from September 2nd to 22nd this year and will climax with the awarding of the coveted Golden Lion.

Nuovo cinema Paradiso is Tornatore's best-known work about a filmmaker who recalls his childhood, when he fell in love with the movies at his village's theatre and formed a deep friendship with the projectionist.