Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival kicks off

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The Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival kicked off on Thursday night at the city's most traditional movie theater. Hundreds of celebrities flocked to the venue to watch Ang Lee's "Taking Woodstock."

The annual Rio film festival, which has grown to be Latin America's largest, will feature 310 films from more than 60 countries, with a special focus on French cinema to mark the year of France in Brazil.

Festival organizer Ilda Santiago said, "We have more than 60 countries represented. Some of them are represented very well. This year, of course, we are paying tribute to France, even though we always have a very special place for France. But this year is unique as we have Jeanne Moreau and Agnes Varda. We have a great celebration of French cinema. The friendship between our countries is very important."

Eighty-one-year-old Jeanne Moureau complimented Brazilian cinema by recalling local directors such as Caca Diegues, with whom she worked in 1973.

French acrtress Janne Moureau said, "I think there are a lot of new films since "City of God." What Caca Diegues has been doing with his crew is something wonderful. We are going to have a "Brazilian Cinema Movement" again."

Agnes Varda, also 81, is known as the grandmother of the French "New Wave." She joined the festival with her latest film, "The Beaches of Agnes."

The festival closes on October 8th with the showing of Quentin Tarantino's "Inglorious Bastards," starring Brad Pitt as the chief of a squad of Jewish-American troops who butcher Nazis in occupied France during World War Two. Their plot collides with that of a Holocaust survivor bent on assassinating Adolf Hitler.