The festival opened with Steven Spielberg's The Terminal,[1] and closed with Katsuhiro Otomo's Steamboy.

[2] The Golden Lion was awarded to Vera Drake, directed by Mike Leigh.

[3][4] On this edition, a new independent section, Venice Days (Giornate degli autori), was created "for free cinema, new talents and new stories".

[5] Also in this edition, The Secret History of Italian Cinema was launched, a new official retrospective section, with the aim of restoring and systematically rediscovering sides of the Italian cinema that have been "forgotten, invisible, unknown or misunderstood".

[9] The following films of the official selection were screened as "out of competition":[11] A section aiming to provide a picture of the new trends in cinema.