The 68 Venice International Film Festival will close on September 10 with a comedy, Damsels in Distress by American director Whit Stillman.

Stillman, who gave  movies such as Metropolitan, Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco, returns to cinema after a few years with his latest work. Damsels in Distress also marks a new phase in the director’s journey into the world of American youth.

The film will screen out of competition, and will follow the Golden Lion Awards ceremony at the Sala Grande on the island of Lido, off Venice and by the Adriatic Sea.

Gautaman Bhaskaran

Damsels in Distress, written, helmed and produced by Stillman, stars the newest of America’s young talents, Greta Gerwig (Hannah takes The Stairs, Baghead and Nights and Weekends), and Adam Brody (In the Land of Women, Jennifer’s Body and Scream 4).

Woody Allen has chosen Gerwig for his under-production Bop Decameron.

Carrie MacLemore, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Analeigh Tipton, Hugo Becker, Ryan Metcalf, and Billy Magnussen will also been seen in Stillman’s work.

Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics and produced by Westerly Film Production, “Damsels in Distress” is a hilarious romp through a shabby American university by three pretty girls, sexy, dynamic and principled. But when they fall in love, their romantic entanglements begin to threaten their friendship and peace.

The Festival will open on August 31 with George Clooney’s The Ides Of March, as part of the competition.

Based on Beau Willimon’s work, Farragut North, Clooney’s movie unfolds  bang in the middle of American Democratic primaries in Ohio for the presidential elections.

The full list of films to screen at Venice will be announced in Rome on July 28.

(Gautaman Bhaskaran has been covering the Venice International Film Festival for a decade.)