Gwyneth Paltrow Misses Film Festival After Plane Drama 9/5/05

Oscar winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow missed the Venice Film Festival after her airplane developed a technical fault and was diverted back to New York.

The blonde movie star was due to attend a press conference at the Italian event to promote her new film Proof, which also stars Sir Anthony Hopkins and The Day After Tomorrow heart-throb Jake Gyllenhaal.

Speaking via mobile phone, Paltrow told the assembled media her aborted trip had been "absolutely, extraordinarily unpleasant.

"I had all kinds of plane problems ... but I was very, very sorry not to be with you. It was going to be the highlight of my summer."

Proof has been nominated for the festival's top prize, the Golden Lion, and re-unites Paltrow with her Shakespeare in Love director John Madden.

In it, she plays a woman struggling to cope with her father's mental deterioration, a role she first played on stage at London's Donmar Warehouse theatre in 2002.