Actress Kasia Smutniak will be the host of the 69th Venice International Film Festival’s Opening and Closing nights.

 

The 69th Festival, directed by Alberto Barbera and organized by la Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, will take place on Lido from 29 August to 8 September 2012.

 

Kasia Smutniak will open the 69th Festival on the evening of Wednesday, August 29, on the stage of Sala Grande (Palazzo del Cinema), on the occasion of the inauguration ceremony to be followed by the screening of the Festival’s opening film The Reluctant Fundamentalist, directed by Mira Nair.

 

On September 8, she will host the closing ceremony, during which the winners of the Golden Lions and the other jury prizes of the Festival’s Venezia 69 Competition will be announced.

 

Polish by birth but Italian by adoption, Kasia Smutniak is one of the new faces of the Italian and international film industry. In 2008 she won a European Silver Ribbon and a Golden Globe for her performance in the Peter Del Monte film Nelle tue mani. In 2010 she burst onto the international scene with the film From Paris with Love in which she acted opposite John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. The following year, she was the face of the mega-campaign for Giorgio Armani's perfume, Idole.

 

Born in Pila, Poland, Katarzyna Anna Smutniak is the daughter of a general in the Polish Air Force. She took her first steps on the catwalk at 16, pursuing her professional modelling career while living in fashion capitals like London, New York, Tokyo and Milan. She is fluent in four languages (Polish, Russian, Italian, and English). She made her film debut in Al momento giusto, by and with Giorgio Panariello (2000). The success of this film was followed by numerous commercials including the one that made her one of the most famous faces of the TIM mobile phone campaigns.

She returned to Poland to star in Haker (2001), by Janusz Zaorski, and in 2002 she was back in Italy to concentrate full-time on her acting career, dividing her roles between the big screen and television. She starred in numerous films, including Radio West – FM 97 (2004), dedicated to the dramatic events in Kosovo, Enrico Oldoini’s 13dici, opposite Giancarlo Giannini (2004), and the Vincenzo Verdicchi film Ora e per sempre with Giorgio Albertazzi (2005). From 2007 onward her roles became more and more important: in addition to Antonello Grimaldi’s Quiet Chaos (Caos calmo) opposite Nanni Moretti, she starred in Peter Del Monte’s  Nelle tue mani.

2010 was a very rewarding year for Smutniak, both in Italy and on the international film scene: she was cast opposite John Travolta in From Paris with love, a film produced by Luc Besson and directed by Pierre Morel.In Italy she appeared in Clash of civilization over an elevator in Piazza Vittorio (Scontro di civiltà per un ascensore a Piazza Vittorio, 2010) by Isotta Toso and as the only female lead in Davide Ferrario’s Tutta Colpa Di Giuda, set in a male prison. In 2010 she also landed one of the lead roles in Carlo Mazzacurati’s comedy The Passion (La Passione),presented at the Venice Film Festival. The following year she was cast in the leading role in the controversial German film The Fourth State directed by Dennis Gansel. In 2012 she returned to the big screen in Italy with Tutti contro tutti, Rolando Ravello’s directorial debut (still filming).

A versatile performer of great sensitivity, on the small screen Kasia Smutniak has appeared in some of the most important national TV films, including Rino Gaetano by Marco Turco, Giuseppe Moscati by Giacomo Campiotti and Questa è la mia terra di Raffaele Mertes. In 2012 she took the female lead in the Rai 1 production Domenico Modugno – la sua vita, opposite Beppe Fiorello.