Venice, 28 April 2008

Burn After Reading, written and directed by Academy Award® winners Joel and Ethan Coen, will open the 65th Venice Film Festival at Lido di Venezia, to be held from 27th August to 6th September 2008, directed by Marco Müller and organised by La Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta.
The film, starring George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins, and Brad Pitt, will be given its world premiere on the evening of 27th August in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema, following the opening ceremony of the 65th Festival.

Burn After Reading is a Working Title Production, produced by Joel and Ethan Coen and executive-produced by Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, and Robert Graf. Burn After Reading will be released in the UK on 5th September, distributed by Universal Pictures; and in the United States on 12th September, distributed by Focus Features. In Italy, Burn After Reading will be distributed by Medusa Film.

In the dark spy-comedy, Mr. Malkovich plays an ousted CIA official whose memoir accidentally falls into the hands of two unwise Washington, D.C. gym employees intent on exploiting their find. The director of photography on Burn After Reading is Emmanuel Lubezki (Children of Men). Mary Zophres is the costume designer, marking her eighth consecutive feature with the Coens. Jess Gonchor, production designer on No Country for Old Men, encores in that capacity on Burn After Reading.

Biographical notes:

Ethan (Minneapolis, USA, 1957) and Joel (Minneapolis, USA 1955) Coen – American directors, scriptwriters and producers, they are now one of the most solid and long-lasting family partnerships in the seventh art. Starting from a continuous and original re-elaboration of the vision of cinema of the past (the classic American cinema), the Coen brothers have produced works that are hard to classify, based on the most different genres to nurture a genre that is highly original and all their own, and always suspended between an artwork and a commercial product, demonstrating thereby that it is possible to retain one’s art within an industry. The two brothers have always worked together on writing scripts, directing and editing, often exchanging roles, even though until 2003 Ethan almost always had the by-line for the film scripts and Joel for directing.