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The Venice film festival has added "Essential Killing" by Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski to the movies competing for this year's Golden Lion.

The film, starring Vincent Gallo as a member of the Taliban captured by Americans and transferred to Europe for interrogation, brings the competition lineup to 24.

Essential Killing is a provocative thriller (almost entirely without dialogue) that confirms the excellent form of the Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski. The film tells the story of an Afghan man, captured by American forces in Kabul, who finds himself transported to a nameless European country. He manages to escape into the vast frozen woodland, a world away from the desert home he knew. Forced into extreme survival mode, he must kill anyone who strays into his path.
The script was written by Skolimowski and Ewa Piaskowska, and produced by Skopia Film. Essential Killing is a Polish/Irish/Norwegian/Hungarian co-production, with the involvement of the Polish Film Institute and Canal + Cyfrowy, Ireland’s Element Pictures, Cylinder Productions in Norway, Hungary’s Mythberg Films, and the support of Eurimages. HanWay Films is handling international sales. Essential Killing sees the Polish director reunite with Jeremy Thomas, who in 1978 produced his film The Shout, which went on to win the Grand Prix of the Jury at Cannes.

Gallo will also be present at the festival as the director of "Promises Written in Water," a black-and-white film about a woman with a terminal illness.

Skolimowski, at 62, will be among a handful of veteran directors showcased in Venice, where the emphasis will be on up-and-coming filmmakers.

Kicking off the event will be 41-year-old U.S. director Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan," about the cutthroat New York ballet world.

Others in the competition are Oscar-winner Sofia Coppola, 39, of the United States and 43-year-old Francois Ozon of France.

Coppola, who won a best screenplay Oscar for "Lost in Translation" (2003), offers a dramatic comedy "Somewhere," set in Hollywood and produced by her serial Oscar-winning father Francis Ford Coppola.

Organizers will announce a surprise contender on Sept. 6. The event will screen 79 full-length world premieres from 34 countries, including a first-time work from the Dominican Republic about its neighbor Haiti.

The world's oldest film festival will run Sept. 1-11.

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