Cruz and Crialese dance on red carpet for 'L' immensità' at Venice

Cruz could be seen hugging her young co-stars and dancing to the music as she posed for photographers.

The premiere came just hours after the film's director Emanuele Crialese revealed that he had been born a woman and that "L' immensità" is inspired by his own experiences as an adolescent.

"L' immensità" focuses on an Italian family growing up in 1970s Rome, where the eldest daughter identifies as a boy, throwing fuel onto already tense relations between her mother, played by Cruz, and her abusive, unfaithful father.

Crialese, whose last film, "Terraferma", won the Special Jury Prize at Venice in 2011, did not give any details of his transition, but said that as in his often tender film, he relied on his mother for support and recognised the anxiety it caused her.

In the Italian-language movie, Cruz's initially exuberant character buckles under the weight of her overbearing husband and troubled trio of children, all of whom carry the scars of living in an unhappy household.

Cruz won the best actress award in Venice last year for "Parallel Mothers".