Atonement -directed by Joe Wright, starring James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, Romola Garai, Saoirse Ronan and Vanessa Redgrave- will open the 64th Venice Film Festival, to be held at the Lido di Venezia from 29th August to 8th September 2007, directed for the fourth time by Marco Müller and organised by the Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Davide Croff. Produced by co-chairmen of Working Title Films Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, and Paul Webster, the screenplay is by Christopher Hampton adapted from the bestselling novel by Ian McEwan. The film will be presented in competition with a world premiere on the evening of 29th August in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema.
The decision to open the 64th edition with Atonement, the second film directed by Joe Wright (his first being Pride & Prejudice), confirms the pioneering vocation of the Venice Film Festival and its ability to work as a true “talent scout” festival. Intercepting the most innovative developments in the film world as and when they happen, and revealing the new trends and currents in contemporary cinema, the Festival discovers and presents the protagonists of cinema of the future. Atonement will be released in UK on 14th September, in the US on 7th December and in Italy on 21st September. Universal Pictures International distributes the film internationally.
The director of the 64th Venice Film Festival, Marco Müller, has declared: "In the year of its 75th anniversary, the Festival must look to the future. For the first time in its history, the opening film is the work of a young director. A film that the selecting committee has unanimously considered – in terms of emotive and visual power – to be even greater than some of the major films of many confirmed directors".
The film's story commences in the English summer of 1935, the hottest day of the year. In the looming shadow of World War II Briony Tallis and her family live a life of wealth and privilege in their enormous Victorian Gothic mansion. As the family gathers the combination of the oppressive heat and long suppressed emotions coming to the surface create an ominous sense of threat and danger. Briony, a fledgling writer, is a girl with a vivid imagination. Through a series of catastrophic misunderstandings she accuses Robbie Turner, the housekeeper’s son and lover of her sister Cecilia, of a crime he did not commit. This accusation destroys Robbie and Cecilia’s new found love and dramatically alters the course of all their lives forever.
