Watching “Zero Bridge”, a film set in Indian-administered Kashmir, I have to say I was constantly braced for something nasty — a bomb from nowhere, a gun attack, blood on the streets. Like many Westerners I associate Kashmir with conflict. Unlike many Westerners I have actually been there, but to Muzaffarabad and along the valleys beneath towering mountains on the Pakistani side of the divided region.

The film, presented at the Venice film festival, is not directly related to the conflict — tens of thousands of people have been killed since 1989 when Muslim rebels launched a violent campaign opposing Indian rule in the Muslim-majority region. Yet it still carried a powerful message.

“Zero Bridge”’s strength is to portray how the fighting, mistrust and political stalemate in Kashmir affect everyday citizens there. The young people at the centre of the narrative are poor, have few employment prospects and little to do in the way of entertainment. They come up against crippling bureaucracy and a zealous police force and are torn between wanting to stay in their homeland with their families, and finding a way to escape to a place where they are free to do what they like and say what they want. The film also examines family traditions in the region — a woman in her 20s is effectively forced into an arranged marriage because her family refuse to support her application for a passport, leaving her with no other option but to stay.

Kashmir has many tragic stories. The characters portrayed in “Zero Bridge” may not be the victims of violence or physical abuse, but they win our sympathy nonetheless.

If we are honest, most of us would admit that we derive a certain pleasure from seeing someone famous fall from their perch, be it with a critical flop, a personal problem or a bout of odd behaviour in public.

How refreshing, then, to see the world-weary entertainment press genuinely rejoicing in Mickey Rourke’s comeback in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler”, which won the Golden Lion for best film at the Venice festival over the weekend. There were no snide asides among reporters as we waited in a hotel lounge by the Adriatic Sea to interview the 51-year-old. Noone complained about where they would rather be or how their head was still reeling from the night before (it was mid-morning).

No, instead there was broad agreement that Rourke had pulled it off. For most of the last 15 years the actor and former boxer has been a peripheral figure, a Hollywood outcast with a reputation for bad behaviour on set and off it. Now he is being universally lauded for an honest and touching performance as a washed up wrestler whose personal problems and professional decline poignantly reflect Rourke’s own life.

And to cap it all, he gave candid answers, with the odd expletive thrown in, suggesting that for the first time in a while he is happy where he is. He told us he believed it was the best film he’d ever made, and indicated that, as a team player from now on, there is plenty more to come.

There have been a few technical glitches at this year’s Venice film festival, but even the most seasoned film critics were puzzled when the main press screening of Italian film “Il Seme della Discordia” (The Seed of Discord), which is vying for the Golden Lion, was cancelled on Thursday.

A statement from organisers simply said the film reel was not available for the 7 p.m. screening. It will instead be shown at 10:30 p.m.

“The Seed of Discord”, by Neapolitain director Pappi Corsicato is one of four domestic films in the main line-up, a bold choice by festival director Marco Mueller which has sparked hopes that one of Italy’s own may scoop the top prize when the awards are announced on Saturday.

Natalie Portman’s inclusion in the short film competition at the Venice film festival has become a major headache for organisers, the press and the actress herself.

A sideline competition normally overlooked by many of the hundreds of journalists and cameramen in Venice each year, the shorts section suddenly became big news when Portman was included and good enough to come to the canal city to talk about her directorial debut “Eve”.

The trouble is, organisers were not ready for the press scrum that greeted the 27-year-old’s arrival, partly explained by the fact that she was in town when there was a dirth of stars generally to keep the celebrity-obsessed media happy. When she accepted an award at the Hotel Des Bains, cameramen jostled hard for position, and Portman looked taken aback by the frenzy.

The next day at a more orderly photo shoot, snappers who traditionally shout loudly to get a star’s attention were told to keep the noise down to avoid unnerving Portman. Stars enjoy a lot of privileges, and putting up with publicity is part and parcel of that life, but it was hard not to feel sorry for Portman.

(this was posted on behalf of Silvia Aloisi, Reuters reporter in Venice) 

Britain does not have any movies in the main competition of the Venice film festival this year but it can console itself with the Gucci Group award going to one of its own.

Artist Steve Mcqueen won the top prize — given each year on the sidelines of the Lido showcase — for “Hunger”, a hard-hitting film about the final days of Bobby Sands, the IRA leader who died in jail after a hunger strike. “Hunger” had already scooped the “Camera d’Or” in Cannes earlier this year.

Festival director Marco Mueller, who is under scrutiny this year for a line-up that has disappointed many critics, said he had really wanted “Hunger” to premiere in Venice “but Cannes got there first”.

Mcqueen was up against another British nominee, London-based photographer Isaac Julien, who was nominated for his film “Derek”, written and narrated by Tilda Swinton. He also beat “Gunnin’ for That #1 Spot”, a Harlem-set documentary on high-school basketball prospects by Beastie Boys’ founding member Adam Yauch, and “Lou Reed’s Berlin” by last year’s winner Julian Schnabel.

French actress Isabelle Huppert and U.S. artist Jeff Koons were among the members of the jury, as was Mueller.

The winner was announced on Monday in a special ceremony at Venice’s Palazzo Grassi, the palace-turned-museum on the Grand Canal that hosts the contemporary art collection of the Gucci Group’s controlling shareholder, Francois Pinault.

Acclaimed Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami has fallen foul of the public in Venice after his latest picture “Shirin” screened at the annual film festival. While some critics were relatively kind to one of “arthouse” cinema’s leading lights, the public was less forgiving.

On the “Give Us Our Money Back!” notice board outside the festival, where people vent their spleens with small notes containing their rants/musings, “Shirin” features far more than any other film so far as Venice reaches its halfway stage.

He was slammed for being pretentious, wasting audience’s time and producing a truly boring piece of cinema. One cartoon features the drawing of a man watching the movie trying to hang himself.

“Shirin” is 92 minutes long. It is a sequence of shots of Iranian women’s faces as they watch a film which the audience never sees. Clever device? Perhaps, but many felt that 114 actresses including French star Juliette Binoche, was a little, shall we say, over the top.

Thursday was Valentino day at the Venice film festival, where “Valentino: The Last Emperor” had a glittering evening premiere at the Teatro La Fenice opera house. The Italian designer, who retired in January this year after nearly half a century in the business, gave the festival a much-needed boost on a day when glamour was otherwise in short supply. Liz Hurley and Eva Herzigova showed up for the screening, where long, flowing dresses and diamonds the size of marbles were in abundance.

The great man, wearing a white tuxedo and his locks typically well-coiffed, shared a few moments with us on his way into the screening.

“I left (the fashion business) with joy, I left because I knew that I wanted to live a little my life and I did a lot in fashion, so now I think about myself,” he said, speaking in heavily accented English.

The film is a fly-on-the-wall look at the couturier, and it features several amusing scenes starring his six pug dogs. One clip shows one of the pampered canines having its teeth brushed and a squirt of breath freshener added for good measure, while another shows a dog leaving a fashion shoot to relieve itself near the photographer.

When some reporters come face to face with A-list celebrities, their brains turn to mush.

Take this morning’s press conference at the Venice film festival. George Clooney and Brad Pitt were among the stars taking questions following the first screening of their latest movie “Burn After Reading”, directed by the Coen brothers.

Inevitably, the questions were personal as well as professional.

“I have a question, it’s very important,” said one male reporter from Brazil: “What do you think it’s (sic) better … to win an Oscar or to fall in love with a beautiful woman here in Venice?”

“Brad, don’t answer that,” Clooney said, trying to maintain a happy atmosphere despite the generally dire standard of questions.

Then came a female reporter from a Hong Kong TV channel: “I want to know how the twins are doing — are they looking more and more like you and Angie?” She was, of course, referring to Pitt’s newborn twins with Angelina Jolie.

Clooney again tried to come to the rescue: “The twins are fine.”

A British journalist enters the fray, asking Pitt: ”I’m just wondering whether you have plans for any more (children) and how many is enough?” and to Clooney: ”Any plans to settle down and have children yourself, if that’s not too personal a question?”

Clooney replied: “I am so surprised to hear that question. That is honestly the first time I’ve been asked that question. I am getting married and having children today. Brad?”

Pitt: ”And until then I’ll be sharing mine with him. I’ll have two more by next year.”

And finally, and it was really painful to watch, came a female reporter from Spain (and excuse the English):

“This is a question for Brad. Can I get closer? I am wearing like this because I want to sign up for your gym. What do I have to do to sign up for your gym like in the film, Brad? And if I sign up, would you be running after me? Both of you.”

Pitt: ”It’s a movie and I have no answer.”

Question: “If I sign up will you be running after me, George?”

Clooney: “I’m afraid, from the looks of it, we might be running from you.”

Hear, hear, George.

The Venice Film Festival is not even underway, but the paparazzi were put through their paces in the canal city on Tuesday when Brad Pitt arrived with two of his children a day ahead of his red carpet appearance to promote “Burn After Reading”, the Coen brother’s latest movie in which he stars.

Cameramen and photographers were dispatched to the airport to greet the Hollywood heartthrob and then the water taxi chase ensued. A further “boat scrum” occurred in Venice itself, where about eight water taxis crowded around the steps leading up to the swanky Cipriani hotel for further shots of the star which, no doubt, will be touted by some of tomorrow’s newspapers as “exclusives”.

Pitt has arrived in Venice early to support a charity dinner tonight where he and George Clooney are promoting “Not On Our Watch”, which aims to raise money for and awareness of the victims of natural disasters and conflicts around the world.

There was no sign, though, of Pitt’s partner Angelina Jolie or their newborn twins, which may come as a relief to some reporters but will be bad news for the paps, for whom pictures of the “Brangelina” clan are about as big as pictures get.

The American Film Institute unveiled its list of the “10 Greatest Films in 10 Classic Genres” in a three-hour CBS Television Network special this week. A jury of 1,500 film artists, critics and historians named the following films as the very best in their genres but do you agree?:

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (Science Fiction) - CITY LIGHTS (Romantic Comedy) - THE GODFATHER (Gangster) -  LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (Epic) - RAGING BULL (Sports) - THE SEARCHERS (Western) - SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (Animation) - TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (Courtroom Drama) - VERTIGO (Mystery) - THE WIZARD OF OZ (Fantasy).

For a full list of the honorees in each category go to the AFI Web site.