The festival, which runs until Saturday week, is set to bring a bevy of stars to one of the world's top cinema showcases, including Charlize Theron, of South Africa, and American Kim Basinger, as well as new offerings by top film-makers such as Takeshi Kitano and Jonathan Demme.

Launching the celebrations but shown out of competition, the Pitt-Clooney crime comedy Burn after Reading from 2008 Oscar-winning duo Joel and Ethan Coen also stars John Malkovitch and Tilda Swinton.

The star pair play two middle-aged gym employees who stumble on the memoirs of a retired CIA agent and try to sell the manuscript to finance cosmetic surgery.

Oscar winners Theron and Basinger play in The Burning Plain, Mexican-born screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga's first shot at directing.

Of the 52 films selected to screen at this year's festival, 21 will be competing for its supreme prize, the Golden Lion, among them the latest films by Japanese directors Takeshi Kitano and Hayao Miyasaki.

Kitano's Achilles and the Tortoise and Miyasaki's animated feature Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea are equal favourites to take out top prize.

An African film in the running is Teza, by US-based Ethiopian veteran Haile Gerima, which traces the life of a young Ethiopian from his student days in West Germany in the 1970s to his return to his village aged 60.

Festival director Marco Mueller said this year's festival would be dedicated to Egyptian film-maker Youssef Chahine, who died on July27 aged 82.

''Who else could have succeeded in mixing the philosopher Averroes with Fred Astaire?

''That's what cinema should be about,'' Mueller said, alluding to Chahine's film Destiny. AFP