with today's divisive media environment. Boyle explained that he was careful, as with the stage version, not to  monsterize  Rupert Murdoch  because he represented at the time [a] breath of fresh air in what was a very rigid British society. It begins with something that's fun and different, challenging a rigid order… It was important to us that the audience feels complicit. 

For her part, Foy said she savored diving into '60s tabloid journalism as a  really intoxicating  plunge.  They had power at their fingertips. They knew what they wrote would be what people read and what people believed,  she said.

Pearce, who plays Murdoch, said he received some second-hand confirmation from the man himself that he gave a thumbs up to the casting choice.  I had some messaging with Elizabeth [Murdoch], his daughter, and she said  Dad's very happy that you are playing him.' But he hadn't seen the film at that point,  Peace noted in today's press conference.

Earlier in the evening, George Clooney brought the house down with a heartfelt speech as he accepted an honorary Golden Lion from his longtime friend Laura Dern during the festival's opening ceremony. The Oscar winner took a walk down memory lane to detail how many artists and collaborators lifted him up on his journey while also taking aim at authoritarianism.

 Stories are always dangerous to people who peddle in fear. The people who are afraid of books and music and stories, they're never the heroes in history. So yes, movies don't stop wars. They don't lower inflation. They don't fix elections, but they do do something remarkable. They remind us that a stranger is never a stranger and that he might just be the hero in somebody else's story,  he said.  And if we can still sit together in the dark and care about people that we have never met, I think maybe we'll be OK. 



Ink is the first of the 21 films competing for this year's Golden Lion to hit the screen. Other anticipated premieres coming in the next 10 days include Robert Pattinson thriller Primetime, Martin McDonagh's Wild Horse Nine, Lee Chang-dong's Possible Love, Florian Zeller's Bunker and the Gaza documentary NAZA. A seven-member jury headed by Maggie Gyllenhaal will choose the winners, which will be revealed at Venice's closing ceremony on Sept. 12.