A US film exposing the ugly reality of the Iraq war seared the big screen at the Venice film festival Friday, with director Brian De Palma saying he hoped it would help end America's military occupation.
"The pictures are what will stop the war," De Palma told a news conference after the showing of the movie, "Redacted".
The feature, which is based on the actual March 2006 rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi schoolgirl by US soldiers who also slaughtered her family, is a reaction to what he sees as sanitised media accounts of the war seen in the United States.
"All the images we (currently) have of our war are completely constructed -- whitewashed, redacted," said De Palma, who is best known for such violent fictions as "Carrie" and "Scarface".
"One only hopes that these images will get the public incensed enough to get their congressmen to vote against the war," he added.
"Redacted" hits hard with its dramatic reenactment of the conditions, attitudes and stresses that led up to the real-life crime.
One of the soldiers involved, Private First Class Jesse Spielman, was in early August sentenced to 110 years in prison for his role in the rape and killings.
Shown through the imaginary video lens of one of the soldiers involved in the raid on the girl's home, De Palma's dramatisation is interlaced with actual news clips, documentary footage and stills from the war.
The decision to use the device of the videocam arose from De Palma's research on the Internet. "The blogs, the use of language, it's all there," he said.
He explained that legal obstacles in dealing with real people and events meant he was "forced to fictionalise things" to get the movie made.
"Redacted" will initially be distributed nationwide by Magnolia Pictures as a "classic art film," its producer Jason Kliot said. "If the response is strong one hopes the distribution will grow the film in a big way."
The movie was something of a jolt when compared with the other fare on Venice's programme.
George Clooney provided Hollywood star power with his latest flick, the thriller "Michael Clayton", in which he plays a "fixer" for an enormous New York law firm.
Tasked with sorting out embarrassments behind the scenes for its megaclients, he finds himself in a moral dilemma -- and in mortal danger -- while trying to help the firm protect a client with a toxic product.
Tilda Swinton, who has the villain's role, said she relished a scene in which she prepares herself for an important meeting, saying it hinted at the movie's question about criminally immoral executives: "How do they look at themselves in the mirror?"
Director Tony Gilroy said the story was "frightening but at the same time there's something spectacular about it."
Italy's first offering to the festival was "Nessuna Qualita agli Eroi" (Fallen Heroes), which grabbed its own share of the spotlight by showing male lead Elio Germano nude and in an evident state of arousal during a salacious sex scene.
Director Paolo Franchi said he hoped the scene wouldn't distract from the movie's drama about a man who cannot father children and is indebted to a ruthless usurer whose demented son befriends him.
The Italian festival had a heavy weighting of US and British entries this year -- nine of the 23 films in competition for the Golden Lion -- though Asian cinema also had a strong showing.
On Thursday, Taiwan's Ang Lee unveiled his spy thriller "Se, Jie" (Lust, Caution), a tense drama set in Japanese-occupied Shanghai in the 1940s.
British director Kenneth Branagh on Thursday also presented "Sleuth" starring Michael Caine and Jude Law, with a crisp screenplay by English playwright and Nobel literature laureate Harold Pinter.
The 23rd film to be shown has been listed as a "surprise", with organisers saying only that it was from an Asian country.
