Johnny Depp, Ralph Fiennes top Venice film fest line-up

Hollywood stars Johnny Depp and Ralph Fiennes top a powerful line-up at this year's Venice film festival, with U.S. and Italian films dominating the competition for the Golden Lion, from war dramas to rock-star thrillers.

Hearthrob Jake Gyllenhaal of "Brokeback Mountain" fame opens the world's oldest competition, which runs from September 2 to 12, with Baltasar Kormakur's 3D mountain thriller "Everest" from Universal, also starring Keira Knightley and Sam Worthington.

Picked to open the season with a bang, the film is based on the true story of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster and is bound to thrill as much as the 2013 festival's hit opener "Gravity," though it will have to fight to top the popularity of 2014's opener "Birdman."

Festival director Alberto Barbera has fought hard this year, the 72nd edition of the festival, to bring films to Venice before they head to Toronto.

His hopes will be pinned on A-lister Depp gracing the red carpet for "Black Mass", in which he plays one of the most famous U.S. gangsters.

Director Scott Cooper's biopic depicts the true story of mobster Whitey Bulger and his attempts to take down a rival mafia family by helping out the FBI, and also stars Kevin Bacon, and Britain's Sienna Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch.

The 21 films in competition include offers from Australia, China, France, Israel, Poland, South Africa and Venezuela.

They face a jury headed by Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron, and nine jurors including actresses Diane Kruger and Elizabeth Banks, Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan and British director Lynne Ramsay.

The line-up includes "great films by auteurs, the return of great masters and many directors showing in the competition for the first time,"...