DIRECTOR Denis Villeneuve has been to the world’s top film festivals, from Cannes to Toronto, but Venice holds a special spot.

“It’s definitely the most elegant,” Villeneuve said.

This week, the director will debut his most ambitious film yet, “Dune,” an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s science fiction classic with an all-star cast led by Timothée Chalamet.

“Dune” is just one of the high-profile premieres coming to the 78th Venice International Film Festival, which begins Wednesday on the Lido with new films from acclaimed directors like Jane Campion, Ridley Scott, Pedro Almodóvar, Paolo Sorrentino, Paul Schrader and Edgar Wright and a roster of A-list celebrities including Ben Affleck, Kristen Stewart, Penelope Cruz, Kirsten Dunst, Zendaya, Adam Driver and Oscar Isaac expected to grace the famed red carpet outside the Palazzo del Cinema.

After being the only major festival to be held in person last year, Venice is once again kicking off a fall film festival season that’s not exactly normal yet, but closer than it was last year. Telluride follows quickly, on Sept. 2, before the Toronto International Film Festival kicks off Sept. 9.

Among the 21 films competing for the Golden Lion are Campion’s “The Power of the Dog,” based on a 1925 novel about brothers in Montana (Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons) who encounter a widow (Dunst) and her son. It’s Campion’s first feature since 2009 and a bit of a homecoming — her Janet Frame biopic “An Angel at My Table” won runner-up at the festival in 1990.

Also vying for the prize is Schrader’s “The Card Counter,” starring Isaac as a former military interrogator who now spends his days playing poker at seedy casinos. Schrader was once a Cannes mainstay, but, he said, “They stopped inviting me for reasons unknown.”

Maggie Gyllenhaal is premiering her first feature, “The Lost Daughter,” in competition. The adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s 2008 novel about a divorcee rediscovering herself without her children stars Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley.

“It’s hard to think of words for it,” Gyllenhaal said of being in the same category as filmmakers like Campion and Almodóvar, whose film “Parallel Mothers” opens the festival. “It’s pretty incredible.”

Other buzzy films in competition include Pablo Larraín’s “Spencer,” starring Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana, Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God,” inspired by the director’s own coming-of-age story, and Ana Lily Amirpour’s “Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon,” with Kate Hudson.

“Dune” is debuting out of competition, alongside Edgar Wright’s “Last Night in Soho,” a stylish psychological horror with Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy, and Ridley Scott’s “The Last Duel,” a 14th century epic with Affleck, Driver, Matt Damon and Jodie Comer.

(SD-Agencies)