ITALY: Hollywood starlet Lindsay Lohan attempts to shake off bad girl image at Venice Film Festival

'Bad girl' Lindsay Lohan on Tuesday (September 5) brought celebrity glitz to the Venice film festival, with paparazzi following her every move as she navigated the waterways of the exclusive Lido beach front. She is in Venice with her boyfriend Harry Morton. Inevitably she was asked about the tabloid press' fascination for her and her private life, but she brushed aside the questions. "I don't think being here is about what attention I get in the tabloids," she told reporters. "That has nothing to do with it. This is about working with a great group of people who are very passionate." Lohan also refrained from making any comments about her ongoing feud with socialite Paris Hilton and repeated a few times that she wanted to talk about the film she was presenting in Venice. For "Bobby" director Emilio Estevez, his new movie about the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968 is a call to young people to shake off their cynicism and engage in the political process. His first feature film in 10 years, which impressed critics in Venice where it is one of 21 entries in the main competition, "Bobby" focuses on the lives of people working at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on the night Kennedy was shot there. The ensemble cast includes Sharon Stone, Demi Moore, Anthony Hopkins and Lindsay Lohan, who offer a slice of American life during the political turmoil of the late 1960s. Real news footage of Kennedy at rallies, mass protests against the war in Vietnam and grim images from the conflict are woven into the narrative, and audiences today are bound to draw parallels with the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Estevez, making his comeback from the movie wilderness with a moving story, said "Bobby", which was written in 2000, was not an indictment of the U.S. administration. But he added: "It has become frighteningly and very sadly relevant and it has become more and more relevant as time goes on," he told a news conference after the press preview and ahead of the film's official world premiere later on Tuesday. For Estevez, who directed his father Martin Sheen in the film and appeared himself, "Bobby" was a welcome return to the world of movies. "I feel like I've been in my basement working on my own little algorithms and out came this picture from this twisted brain," he said. "I'm just so very proud to be coming back into the game and to be embraced by this festival and by the business in general. It's difficult not to weep when I think about it." Lohan plays an idealistic woman who marries an old friend to save him from the Vietnam front, while Moore portrays an alcoholic singer bitterly aware of her advancing years. Hopkins is the old hotel manager, while Moore's real-life husband Ashton Kutcher plays a hippie who encourages two of Kennedy's campaign workers to take LSD for the first time, with hilarious consequences. Lohan who was rumoured to have plans to travel to Iraq and entertain U.S. troops a la Marylin Monroe, reiterated that that was still on the cards but didn't go into details. "It was a tribute to her that I'd like to follow through with, we will see what happens in time, there's not really much that I can say but I love her she's an icon and what she did when she visited the troops meant a lot to them and I really respect her for that", she said. She added: "I feel like I always have been somewhat politically engaged and I strongly encourage people of my age and my generation to have a say and to vote and to involve themselves in what's going on in the world because they're living in it." The festival closes on Saturday, September 9 with the golden lion award ceremony.

ITN Source | September 6, 2006

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