The 70th Venice International Film Festival opened on Wednesday with the global premiere of "Gravity" screened in 3D at the Lido island of Venice in Italy.

The much-awaited film directed by Mexican film director Alfonso Cuaron, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, was applauded by a public of cinema critics and journalists.

Gravity, from Warner Bros. Pictures, is a heart-pounding thriller that pulls watchers into the infinite and unforgiving realm of deep space.

In the film, which is part of the festival's Out of Competition section, Sandra Bullock plays Dr. Ryan Stone, a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky, interpreted by George Clooney.

But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes: the shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalsky completely alone and tethered to nothing but each other while spiraling out into the blackness.

"This movie has all the elements that will find their development in the third millennium," a cinema critic, Francesco Crispino, told Xinhua shortly after the movie's screening.

The last time Venice opened with a science fiction movie was in 2000 with Space Cowboys by Clint Eastwood, at the 57th Film Festival. Endi