Festival opens with Tim Burton's Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

The 2024 Venice International Film Festival, which celebrates its 81st edition, will take place at the Lido in the Italian canal city from 28 August until 7 September.

This year's gala film event will see a return of Hollywood glamour after last year's industrial strikes by trade unions in the movie world kept A-listers away from the world's oldest film festival.

The guests set to grace the red carpet at the 10-day festival, directed once again by Alberto Barbera, include George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Nicole Kidman, Joaquin Phoenix, Daniel Craig, Cate Blanchett and Lady Gaga.

A jury headed by French actress Isabelle Huppert will judge the 21 films vying for the top Golden Lion prize.

Some of the most anticipated films in competition include The Room Next Door by Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, which tells the story of the rift between a war correspondent mother and her daughter.

Other high-profile contenders in competition include Todd Phillips' Joker: Folie à Deux with Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga; and Dutch director Halina Reijn's erotic thriller Babygirl, starring Nicole Kidman and Antonio Banderas.

There are also five Italian films in the running, including Maura Delpero's Vermiglio, the Mountain Bride, set in a village in the Dolomites at the end of World War Two; Gianni Amelio's Battlefield, about the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918-19; Sicilian Letters by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza, about a fugitive mafia boss; Luca Guadagnino's Queer, adapted from William Burroughs and starring Daniel Craig; and Diva Futura by Giulia Louise Steigerwalt about Italian pornographer Riccardo Schicchi.

Among the main talking points in the out-of-competition section are Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Tim Burton's sequel to his 1988 cult classic, which opens the prestigious film festival on Wednesday, and Wolfs starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney, about two professional fixers who prefer to work alone but find themselves forced to work together.

The festival's pre-opening film on Tuesday is L’oro di Napoli (1954), directed by Vittorio De Sica and starring Sofia Loren, to mark the 50th anniversary of the death of the great film director.

For full details of the festival, which closes with Pupi Avati's The American Backyard, see La Biennale di Venezia website.