Death in Venice? Most glamorous film festival takes aim at bleak world affairs

For most of its 82 years, the Venice film festival has been perceived as the world's most glamorous.

- Catherine Shoard

This year was no exception: stars including Julia Roberts, Cate Blanchett, Jude Law and George Clooney dutifully waved from canals and trooped down red carpets (although Law slipped from his water taxi and Clooney got ill).

The films themselves struck a different note. The jury president, Alexander Payne, may have rebutted questions about current affairs during his opening press conference, declaring himself concerned only with discussing cinema, but cinema at Venice this year was concerned largely with discussing current events.

The big hits of the festival were two nail-biting, ticking-clock stories - both directed by women - that tackled real-world situations of tragedy and magnitude.

Towards the end of the festival, The Voice of Hind Rajab, Kaouther Ben Hania's dramatisation of the killing of a five-year-old girl by the Israel Defense Forces, earned a 22-minute standing ovation, as well as chants around the auditorium of "Free Palestine".