Adam Driver, Penelope Cruz's 'Ferrari' among top contenders at Vince Film Festival

Ferrari, a film featuring Adam Driver and Penelope Cruz in the lead roles, is being tipped as one of the top contenders for the Venice Film Festival award.

The film is a biopic about sports car supremo Enzo Ferrari. 

Driver brings some much-needed stardust to a festival whose red carpet is untypically low on celebrities this year, a casualty of an actors strike in Hollywood.

"Ferrari" from director Michael Mann -- known for highly stylised and glossy thrillers like "Heat" and "Collateral" -- was given an exemption by the unions since it was made outside the studio system, allowing Driver to attend the premiere.

The 39-year-old is one of the busiest men in Hollywood, juggling blockbuster roles in the Star Wars franchise alongside work with a who´s who of top directors, from Ridley Scott to Noah Baumbach and Spike Lee.

Also building buzz is the premiere of "Dogman" by French director Luc Besson ("The Fifth Element", "Leon"), which is billed as a mind- and gender-bending tale of an abused boy finding refuge with a pack of dogs.

It is said to feature another startling performance from Caleb Landry Jones, who won best actor at Cannes two years ago for "Nitram", about a mass shooting in Australia.

Besson, 64, is hoping for a comeback after a massive flop with 2017´s "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets" that all but bankrupted his production company, EuropaCorp.

The losses wiped out the fortune it made with the "Taken" series and knocked Besson´s hopes of competing with the Hollywood behemoths.

He has also been fighting a rape allegation since 2018 that was thrown out by prosecutors only in June.