Venice Film Festival | Line-up of films include ‘Ferrari,’ ‘The Killer’ and ‘Priscilla’

The festival’s artistic director Alberto Barbera is putting a brave face on the expected disruption and has managed to attract one of the strongest line-ups in recent years, defying dire predictions of a mass no-show by big studio productions

The Venice film festival opens its doors on Wednesday to a stack of highly anticipated movies but less star power than usual, as a Hollywood actors' strike keeps many A-listers off the famed red carpet.

The festival's artistic director Alberto Barbera is putting a brave face on the expected disruption and has managed to attract one of the strongest line-ups in recent years, defying dire predictions of a mass no-show by big studio productions.

"We know that some talent will not be able to attend ... But some others will come because they are working in the independent films," Barbera said. "So everything is good. It looks very positive."

New films by directors including Bradley Cooper, Yorgos Lanthimos, David Fincher, Michael Mann, Sofia Coppola, Ava DuVernay and Ryusuke Hamaguchi will compete for the prestigious Golden Lion at the event, which runs until Sept. 9.

But away from Venice's picture-perfect canals, a sense of crisis pervades the movie-making business, with strikes by both the main U.S. actors and writers' unions bringing much of the entertainment industry to a standstill.

"If the strikes last longer, it will have a huge, negative impact on the next (release) season and the awards season as well," Barbera said.

Venice regularly throws up big favourites for the Oscars, with eight of the past 11 best-director Oscars going to films that debuted at Venice, including "La La Land" in 2016, directed by this year's jury president, Damien Chazelle.