The Wednesday kickoff of the Venice Film Festival was lit by Hollywood star power, but like the world economy, the weeklong event is being propped up by Europe and Asia.

George Clooney and my Mizzou classmate Brad Pitt were on Lido Island to premier the new spy comedy “Burn After Reading,” the Coen brothers’ follow-up to the Oscar winning “No Country for Old Men.” But it is depressingly clear that the prizewinner for the festival will not be emerging from the English-speaking entries. There are only five of them—half the number of last year’s festival, which boasted “Atonement” as well as Clooney’s “Michael Clayton” and Pitt’s “The Assassination of Jesse James.”In front of the beachside cinema complex, I watched George and Brad graciously signing autographs before the premier. But I wasn’t there. A certain cut-rate airline—I’m looking at you, Air One—delayed my connection from Naples for six hours, so I missed the movie (until a enchanting outdoor reprise last night in a Venetian piazza that was like a real-life ”Cinema Paradiso”).

On my flight I met Walter Parkes and Laurie McDonald, the producers of another American entry, “The Burning Plain,” which is the directorial debut of crafty screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga (“Babel,” “21 Grams”). Parkes and McDonald were bemused by an article in the International Herald Tribune that said this year’s slate was a downbeat echo of a world in turmoil. The article described their film as a drama about a young woman (Charlize Theron) and her mother (Kim Basinger) who “struggle to re-establish a troubled relationship.” Parkes luaghed and said that that description left out a particularly dark detail.

The dark vibe extends to the other American entries. Jonathan Demme’s “Rachel Getting Married” is about a fashion model (Anne Hathaway) who is furloughed from drug rehab to attend her sister’s wedding. Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” is about a bomb disposal team in Iraq. And Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” challenges us to gaze upon Mickey Rourke in Spandex.

Now in its 65th edition, the Venice filmfest is the oldest and one of the most prestigious in the world. But with the U.S. dollar plummeting, not many American critics are flush or foolish enough to travel here. (Instead many will attend next week’s Toronto Film Festival, as will I.) So the international press corps is focusing much of its attention on the crop of films from Asia and Europe.