The Venice Film festival has announced the Critics Week and Venice Days section of its festival.
The festival's Critics' Week section will include six in-competition films and a pair of out-of-competition screenings. Alessandro Rak's animated feature "The Art of Happiness" will open the ceremony, while Chilean film "Illiterate" by Moises Sepulveda will close the section.
Other films selected for the sidebar include Abdellah Taia of "Morocco, Atertraffen (The Reunion)" from Sweden, "Las niñas Quispe (The Quispe Girls)" from Sebastian Sepulveda, and Rok Bicek's "Razredni sovraznik (Class Enemy)."
The films in the Critics' section will be eligible for the festival's Golden Lion of the Future prize.
The Venice Days section will center on a cosmopolitan competition selection of a dozen films. The films will include "La Belle Vie" from France's Jean Denizot, Yuval Adler's "Bethlehem," and Cherien Dabis "May in the Summer," which garnered rave reviews when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
The section will also include the second edition of its Women's Tales sidebar. The films that will be screened in the sidebar include Ava DuVernay's "The Door" and Hiam Abbas' "Le Donne della Vucciria."
The festival also announced that three finalists will compete for the European Union's Lux Film Prize for EU-made films. The films are Valeria Golino's directorial debut "Miele (Honey)," Felix Van Groeningen's Tribeca Film festival winner "The Broken Circle Breakdown," and Clio Barnard's "The Selfish Giant."
The organizers recently announced that Alfonso Cuaron's "Gravity" would open the festival.
Venice's committee will announce the competition and out-of-competition slate on Thursday. The 70th edition of the festival will take place from Aug. 28 through Sept. 7.