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Im Kwon-taek Looking Strong at Venice Film Festival

The Venice International Film Festival, one of the world's three largest film festivals, is to open on Wednesday. Presented in the competition section are 21 films including "Haryu Insaeng" ("Low Life") by Im Kwon-taek, "Birth" by Janathan Glazer, "Vanity Fair" by Indian director Mira Nair, and "Land of Plenty" by German director Wim Wenders.
The festival, which will run through Sept. 11, features a number of movies about terrorist attacks. "Land of Plenty" deals with the American society after the 9.11 attack, and "Hamburg Cell" is a story about a kidnapper involved in the 9.11. A lot of stars, such as Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Reese Witherspoon, and Denzel Washington, will attend the festival.

The opening movie is "The Terminal" directed by Steven Spielberg starring Tom Hanks. Among the group of judges, headed by director John Boorman, are German director Wolfgang Beckers, American director Spike Lee, and actress Scarlett Johansson who starred in "Lost in Translation".

Golden Lions Award will be announced at the closing ceremony on Sept. 11, which will be presided by Italian actress Sophia Lauren.

Im Kwon-taek, whose movie "Low Life" has been invited in the competition section, will leave for Venice with its hero Cho Sung-woo and heroine Kim Gyu-ri on Sept. 7.

Having once made his name known in Venice with his 1987 movie "Ssibaji" ("The Surrogate Woman"), whose heroine Kang Soo-yeon won the Best Actress Award at the festival in 1987, Im is one of the most prominent candidates for the Golden Lions Award. If he wins the award, Korea will sweep the world's three largest film festivals since Kim Ki-duk won the Best Director Award with his move "Samaria" at the Berlin International Film Festival and Park Chan-wook won the Grand Prize at the Canne International Film Festival earlier this year.

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