The world premiere of Mexican film director Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, will open the 70th Venice International Film Festival next month.

Festival organisers said the 3D thriller, starring Bullock and Clooney as astronauts cast adrift in space after disaster strikes their shuttle, will kick off the festival on August 28.

Bullock plays Dr Ryan Stone, a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with Clooney as veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky spiralling through the blackness of space.

Cuaron may be best known for directing the 2004 film Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban but he has also earned three Oscar nominations for the Children of Men in 2006 and Y Tu Mama Tambien in 2001.

The 70th Venice International Film Festival, organised by La Biennale di Venezia, will be held at the Lido of Venice from August 28 to September 7.

Veteran Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci, best known for his steamy 1972 movie Last Tango in Paris, will head the jury that decides the main awards at the annual cinema showcase, including the coveted Golden Lion prize for best picture.

The line-up of the festival will be announced at the end of July in Rome.

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