The 69th Venice International Film Festival begins tomorrow and features the premiere of 18 movies from across the world that will compete at the event. The festival will run from tomorrow until September 8th.

As the world’s oldest film festival, the Venice Film Festival’s goal is to raise awareness and promote international cinema as art, as entertainment, and as an industry. This year’s festival in particular appears to be a look back at the history of cinema and how it can be preserved. The director of the festival, Alberto Barbera, stated that this year’s festival is more restrained, with fewer films in competition, and that the festival’s retrospectives are important for film culture.

“It serves to raise an awareness among young people, of extraordinary films restored to their initial splendour and projected in the best possible conditions,” said Barbera. “Just to remember that the cinema, even the ‘old’ one, should be seen on the big screen, and that without the past there wouldn’t be a future for the movies.”

Four of the movies in competition are from U.S. directors. Ramin Bahrani’s At Any Price is set to premiere, as is Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder. Paul Thomas Anderson will debut his latest film, The Master, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Jaoquin Phoenix. Spring Breakers, Harmony Korine’s new movie, will also be shown in competition. Spring Breakers stars James Franco, as well as Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens as sexy college girls who plan to rob a fast food shack for spring break money, but quickly fall in with Franco’s thuggish character.

The festival also features showings of some restored classic films and documentaries on cinema from the Historical Archives of Contemporary Arts of the Biennale. Restored classics scheduled to be shown include Heaven’s Gate and Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander.

The finalists from the YouTube-sponsored Your Film Festival will be chosen at the Venice Film Festival. The winner of that competition stands to win $500,000 and a chance to create a project with Ridley Scott and Michael Fassbender. The finalists, who will be traveling to Venice this week, can be seen in the video below.