Danish Girl film starring Eddie Redmayne set for Venice premiere

Redmayne won an Oscar this year for playing physicist Stephen Hawking

Eddie Redmayne's first film since his Theory of Everything Oscar triumph is to have its world premiere at this year's Venice Film Festival.

The Danish Girl, in which the actor plays one of the first people to have sex reassignment surgery, is one of 21 titles up for its Golden Lion award.

It was announced on Tuesday that Tom Hooper's biopic of Lili Elbe will also screen at the Toronto Film Festival.

The Venice Film Festival runs from 2 to 12 September.

Other titles in the main competition line-up include Heart of a Dog, the directorial feature debut of US musician Laurie Anderson; Beasts of No Nation, a drama about an African civil war starring Idris Elba; and Anomalisa, Charlie Kaufman's first animated feature.

The event will kick off with a screening of mountaineering drama Everest, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Keira Knightley, and features an out-of competition screening of Black Mass, a crime drama starring Johnny Depp as infamous mobster Whitey Bulger.

Venice is one of the world's oldest film festivals and is often used as a launch pad for films hoping to receive accolades in the upcoming awards season.

Birdman, last year's opening night film, went on to be named best picture at this year's Academy Awards, while Gravity had its premiere at the 2013 edition.

A full list of this year's Venice line-up is available on the official festival site.