65th Venice International Film Festival 65th Venice International Film Festival The 65th annual Venice International Film Festival, held in Venice, Italy, was opened on August 27, 2008, by "Burn After Reading", and closed on September 6, 2008. International competition jury, led by Wim Wenders, awarded Leone d'Oro to "The Wrestler", directed by Darren Aronofsky. 77-year-old Italian film director Ermanno Olmi received a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. The festival opened on August 27, 2008, with the highly anticipated film directed by the Coen brothers, "Burn After Reading". "Burn" is not running in the official competition and thus is ineligible to win any prizes, but reaction
Songs of Life Festival by Bulgaria. When trains came to take 49,000 more Bulgarian Jews to the death camps, the Bulgarian people resisted the demands of the German government and refused to allow their Jewish neighbors to be sent to concentration camps in what was the single largest non-deportation of Jews during World War II. The Songs of Life Festival debuted in November 2008 on the 65th anniversary of the rescue in the Bulgarian cities of Sofia and Plovdiv and in Petah Tikva and Jerusalem in Israel. Ernest Bloch’s choral-orchestral piece, "Sacred Service", a Jewish work, was performed. During the inaugural festival, 49,000 flowers