66th Venice International Film Festival 66th Venice International Film Festival The 66th annual Venice International Film Festival, held in Venice, Italy, was held from 2 to 12 September 2009, with Maria Grazia Cucinotta serving as the festival's hostess. The opening film of the festival was "Baarìa" by Giuseppe Tornatore and the closing film was "Chengdu, I Love You" by Fruit Chan and Cui Jian. The international competition jury, chaired by Ang Lee, awarded the Golden Lion to "Lebanon" by Samuel Maoz. The international juries of the 66th Venice International Film Festival were composed as follows: Main competition (Venezia 66) Horizons (Orizzonti) Opera Prima ("Luigi de
The World (film) France's Lumen Films. It received additional financial support from the Shanghai Film Studio and several Japanese corporations including Bandai Visual and Tokyo FM, among others. The film premiered in competition at the 2004 Venice Film Festival on September 4, 2004, but failed to win the coveted Golden Lion, the festival's top award, which ultimately went to Mike Leigh's drama "Vera Drake", but which Jia would win two years later with "Still Life". "The World" also premiered in 2004 at the New York Film Festival and would go on to receive a limited release in New York City the following year