Theron plays a detective looking for the missing soldier
Hollywood actress Charlize Theron, who is promoting her latest movie at the Venice Film Festival, has said she hopes US troops in Iraq can come home.
The 32-year-old stars in the film, In The Valley of Elah, based on the true story of a soldier who goes missing after serving in Iraq.
“Nothing would give me more joy than to see them back in America,” the Oscar-winning star said.
Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon play the missing soldier’s parents.
Theron said: “[The soldiers] are doing a very, very important job and it’s a dangerous one. Hopefully they can come back and be looked after, that’s the least we can do for them.”
The movie is the second Iraq drama at this year’s festival - the first, Brian De Palma’s Redacted, premiered on Friday.
The Valley of Elah was written and directed by Paul Haggis, whose last film was the Oscar-winning Crash.
“I laugh when I hear these statements that Hollywood is jumping on the bandwagon because the American public is turning against the war,” Haggis said.
“We started work on the film in 2003, when the president had an 80% approval rating, everyone even in the neighbourhood where I live was driving around with flags on their cars, and the president was saying it was unpatriotic to even question this war,” he said.
He said financing the film was hard and thinks at the time it was “risky” to make.
Meanwhile, director Ken Loach also premiered his new film, It’s A Free World at the festival.
The movie takes a look at the exploitation of migrant workers in the UK.
Loach said he hoped it would generate attention on the plight of immigrants - legal or otherwise - who have flocked to the country from eastern Europe in recent years.
“On the one hand people say the economy couldn’t survive without the immigrant workforce. On the other, the right wing is saying, ‘Get these people out of our country’. It’s hypocrisy,” he said.
