The Tokyo International Film Festival opened Saturday with stars including Hollywood actress Sigourney Weaver strolling a “green” carpet made of recycled plastic bottles.

The theme of the nine-day festival, which will feature more than 100 movies, is ecology. Films include “The Cove,” a documentary that depicts an annual hunt of dolphins in Japan. Festival organizers added it at the last minute in part because of pressure from overseas.

While the movie has won more than a dozen awards worldwide, it is not among the 15 Japanese and foreign films competing for the festival’s top prize of $50,000.

“The Cove” has provoked outrage over the dolphin hunt in the seaside town of Taiji in southwestern Japan, where 2,000 dolphins are killed every year, mostly for meat.

The film shows fishermen banging on poles to frighten the dolphins into a cove, where they are killed with spears. The cove is closed off by barbed wire, and the movie crew had to film most footage covertly.

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George Clooney was appearing at the Rome Film Festival to promote his comic drama “Up in the Air,” which is in competition at the event.

The film received warm applause at a press screening on Saturday.

“Up in the Air” tells the story of a man, Ryan Bingham, on a mission to rack up a million frequent-flyer miles as he travels across America as a corpotate downsizer.

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LONDON — George Clooney and Meryl Streep are due to walk the red carpet for the opening of the 53rd London Film Festival.

The stars provide voices for the lead characters in Wednesday’s opening-night film, Wes Anderson’s animated adventure “Fantastic Mr. Fox.”

Anderson’s stop-motion kid-flick is adapted from Roald Dahl’s book about the battle between a chicken-stealing fox and three evil farmers.

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Kanye West takes the mike from Taylor Swift during Sunday's awards. (AP)

Photos from Sunday’s big show | Moonman winners

Taylor Swift was relishing her unlikely win of best female video at the MTV Video Music Awards. The 19-year-old knew that the network doesn’t exactly make a habit out of giving their moonman trophies to country music stars.

“I was standing on the stage and I was really excited because I had just won the award,” Swift said after Sunday’s show at Radio City Music Hall. “And then I was really excited because Kanye West was on the stage. And then I wasn’t so excited anymore after that.”

Taking the microphone, the rapper protested Swift’s selection and announced that Beyonce, also nominated, should have won because her Single Ladies (Put a Ring on it) was “one of the best videos of all time.”

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Jason Bateman, left, and Mila Kunis, fellow cast members in “Extract,” pose together at the premiere of the film in Los Angeles, Monday, Aug. 24, 2009.

See more celebs at TV summit in L.A.

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Actor Rupert Grint attends the premiere of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” at the Ziegfeld Theater, Thursday, July 9, 2009 in New York.

Actor Tom Felton and girlfriend Jade Olivia attend the premiere of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” at the Ziegfeld Theater on Thursday, July 9, 2009 in New York City.