Brad Pitt is attending the Venice Film Festival with his new film “Burn After Reading” but it is last year’s glory with “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” that he unexpectedly relived Wednesday.

Brad Pitt and longtime friend and collaborator George Clooney are in Italy, attending the prestigious Venice Film Festival with the Coen brothers’ latest creation, “Burn After Reading.”

The Academy Award nominated actor made a glorious visit to the film festival last year, receiving wide acclaim for his role as famed outlaw Jesse James in the above-mentioned film and ultimately won the Best Actor trophy.

The festival’s organizers had a surprise in store for the actor this year, as during the opening ceremony of the 65th Venice International Film Festival they presented him with the golden trophy he won last year but did not take home with him.

Graciously accepting the award, Pitt joked, “You can run but you can’t hide,” adding, “It was an honor to receive this last year and it remains an honor to accept this year.”

The festivities continued as he and George Clooney were present for the opening of “Burn After Reading,” which also marked the festival’s official beginning. The film is showing out of competition.

Pitt and Clooney are joined on-screen by Tilda Swinton (who received an Academy Award for best Supporting Actress last year for her role in “Michael Clayton”), Frances McDormand and John Malkovich.

Joel and Ethan Coen’s dark comedy tells the story of a CIA analyst (Malkovich) who is dismissed from the agency because of his drinking problem and then decides to write a memoir about his activity as a federal agent.

The memoir soon makes unexpected travels and becomes an object of peril for the agency. One CIA agent (Clooney) is assigned to recover the document ad destroy it.

Pitt and McDormand portray two dorky blackmailing gym instructors, while Swinton plays the adulterous wife of Malkovich’s character.

Joel and Ethan Coen last entertained moviegoers with 2007’s critically praised “No Country for Old Men,” which received Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem).

Clooney previously starred in the Coen brothers’ 2000 comedy “O Brother Where Art Thou?” Joel Coen and McDormand have been married since 1984.

The Venice Film Festival runs through Sept. 6, with 21 movies competing for the Golden Lion this year, including director Takeshi Kitano’s “Achilles and the Tortoise,” Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler,” starring Mickey Rourke, and French director Barbet Schroeder’s “L’Inju: la Bete dans l’Ombre” (“The Beast in the Shadows”).