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Almost forgotten amid the glamour and flashbulbs of the opening of the Venice Festival were three unassuming figures who accompanied the cast of the opening day film Everest. Bemba Sherpa, Ang Dorje Sherpa, Ang Kula Sherpa are from their native Nepal but they are far from supporting players in the real-life adventure and drama narrated by Baltasar Kormakur’s movie.

The stars are ready to celebrate their films here even if the Lido is not: in the afternoon of opening day construction was still not done in front of the Palazzo del Cinema and the adjacent Casino that houses the press office facilities during the festival. While hordes of fans – mostly minors – were camping out for hours with umbrellas to shield them from the sun and the extreme heat behind the barriers at the red carpet, workers were still busy nailing down the floor and removing plastic sheeting.

There was almost as much white off-screen as on: while the festival audience on opening night watched climbers fighting for their lives on a snow covered Everest, the two most glamorous members of the jury walked the red carpet in breathtaking white gowns. Elizabeth Banks dazzled in a backless Dolce & Gabbana while Diane Kruger wore a sweet but sexy Prada.

The beachfront Palazzo del Cinema on the Lido got a taste of high altitude as the Venice Film festival opened with a screening of Baltásar Kormakur’s Everest a fictional telling of dramatic real-life mountaineering. The Mount Everest climbing season of 1996 will forever be remembered as one of the most tragic in the annals of mountain climbing.

Fresh. Feminine.

Boats, pasta and amore may provide the backdrop to the Venice festival but it is cinema that matters most. This year more than ever.

The HFPA’s Silvia Bizio spoke exclusively to the actress who graces the festival’s poster. Nastassja Kinski will be at the Venice Film Festival, not as lead actress of a film as she has many times in the past, but as the festival icon.

Horror master Wes Craven died in his Los Angeles home this past Sunday August 30, 2015 after a long battle with brain cancer. He was 76.

And the week belongs to … Terminator Genisys, the worldwide winner. Hold it: didn’t the last installment of the franchise that has launched the careers of both James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger have its debut during the Independence Day weekend? And with a domestic total below $90 million and a production cost of twice as much, wasn’t Genisys considered a failure just a few weeks ago? The film that blew the last chance for Arnold’s Hollywood comeback after his break playing the real-life role of Governor of California? All this was and is true, but that was before the overseas market started pumping money, an estimated $238 million into the film’s coffers.

Two-time Golden Globe nominee Peter Bogdanovich certainly knows a thing or two about screwball comedies. Back in the 1970s, the legendary director revived the classic Hollywood genre with his hit films Paper Moon (which earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Director) and What’s Up, Doc?.