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One in an occasional series exploring the state of Hollywood films in global markets. While 2019 has been an exceptional year for Hollywood films in Japan, the third-largest movie market in the world ceded the number two spot to China in 2013.

Beginning in 1952 when the Cecil B. deMille Award was presented to its namesake visionary director, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has awarded its most prestigious prize 66 times.

Despite the Venice heat, oodles of material offset the sheath. Trousers also popped up, while men stayed classic.

Kristen Stewart stars as American actress Jean Seberg, whose life was tragically destroyed when she became a target of the FBI's COINTELPRO program. The actress, who became a darling of the French new wave best known for Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, was a political activist who supported the Black Panther Party and was thus placed on the FBI’s list of persons to be ‘neutralized’.

Edward Lewis was born on December 16, 1919, in Camden, N. J.

In 1983, Venice Festival director Gianluigi Rondi deemed Dark Habits, the debut film by a young Spanish director, “obscene”. Now, 36 years later, said Spanish director laughingly reminded the audience of that fact when he picked up the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in directing at the 76th Venice International Film Festival.

Any major festival worthy of the name has its controversies and this year’s Mostra del Cinema (the official name of the Venice Festival) has Roman Polanski. Ever since the selection of his J’Accuse was announced last month in the official competition, it has predictably been controversial.

The stars are starting to blossom on the Lido carpet like blooms in spring. Tight tubes of material were the preference, with belts becoming a thing.

Venice 2019 is hot. Very hot indeed - and we're not talking about the quality of the films on offer, or the usual debates and controversies: temperatures are spectacularly high.

“Festivals are in the natural order of free and open societies,” said Biennale president Paolo Baratta during the festival opening ceremony from the stage of the Sala Grande. His auspices – and the implication that film festivals might be needed today more than ever - were well received by the elegant crowd that packed the theater.