Venice honour for Eastwood

Clint Eastwood in a scene from Space Cowboys

Clint Eastwood will be guest of honour at this year's Venice Film Festival, which starts next month.

The 70-year-old actor's films will be screened throughout the 10-day event, including episodes of Rawhide, the TV series which made him into a household name 40 years ago.

His new film, Space Cowboys, will open the festival. It sees him play a retired US Air Force pilot sent into space to repair a damaged Russian satellite launched in the 1960s.

Eastwood will also be honoured with the Golden Lion career achievement award, organisers said.

Hugh Grant and Tracey Ullman in Small Time Crooks

Films in competition this year come from India, South Korea and Iran to the UK, Italy, France and Spain.

Fewer Hollywood films will feature in this year's festival, although two US offerings will be shown: Dr T and The Women, directed by Robert Altman and starring Richard Gere and Helen Hunt, and Julian Schnabel's Before Night Falls, starring Johnny Depp and Hector Babenco.

Festival director Alberto Barbera said: "In times of progressive globalisation, the distance between the centre of cinema and his peripheries is getting greater."

British director Stephen Frears is in competition with Liam, while France's Xavier Beauvois will enter Selon Matthieu, starring Nathalie Baye, who was given the best actress honour at last year's festival.

Czech-born director Milos Forman will be the president of the main jury.

Out of competition, Woody Allen's Small Time Crooks - starring the director, Hugh Grant and Tracey Ullman - will also be shown.