Venice Film Festival, the oldest film event in Europe, opens on?September 1?with Darren Aronofsky's dark psychological drama Black Swan.?Chinese action movie, The Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen, will be?another opening film. The film's director Andrew Lau and?kung fu star Donnie Yen have arrived at?Venice.?

Kung fu star Donnie Yen (L) and director Andrew Lau pose before the beginning of the 67th Venice Film Festival. [CFP/China.org.cn]

A total of 35 countries participate the festival with their latest film works. China brings 7 movies: Huang Wenhai's Qiao (Crust) and Xifang qu ci bu yuan (Reconstructing Faith), Stanley Kwan's Yongxin tiao (Showtime), Xun Sun's 21 ke (21 Grams), Tsui Hark's Di Renjie zhi Tongtian diguo (Detective Dee and the Mystery of Phantom Flame), John Woo and Su Chao-Pin's Jianyu (Reign of Assassins) and Zhang Yuan's Taikong xia (Space Guy).

Among them Tsui Hark's kung fu thriller will compete for this year's Gold Lion award. Asian and Hollywood director and producer John Woo, an innovator of the contemporary language of cinema, has been awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.

Second only to Cannes in terms of prestige, Venice has suffered since the economic downturn of 2008.

Many Hollywood producers prefer to show their films at a cheaper venue that overlaps with Venice, the Toronto Film Festival. But Festival Director Marco Mueller insists that his festival will only accept world premieres.

Faced with the global economic downturn, the festival director Marco Müller talks about his expectations for this year's event and the international film industry.

He?said: "A lot of people now are counting on a two step operation where the visibility, the credibility of the film is built in Venice, Venice reveals the immediate aesthetical qualities of the film, or everything that makes this film very exciting. And Toronto reveals the market value of the film so, well that does define a context where in the future we should be able to work hand in hand."

Besides the usual fare from some usual film production areas like the US and Asia, this year's festival will also screen many entries from South America.

Marco Mueller said, "This year we have, the intimation that something is really happening in South American cinema. We have a lot of very bold, very robust films from South America."

The average age of filmmakers in the main line-up this year is an unusually low 47, and includes Oscar winner Sofia Coppola, 39, with comic drama "Somewhere."

The 67th Venice Film Festival runs from September 1 to?11.