Leon’s protégée and wunderkind of the silver screen Natalie Portman is all grown up and directing some movies between starring in others. Arriving at the first screening of her first short film at the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, she says: "When you are an actor of course you are creating something but you are serving someone else's vision and ultimately it's someone else's creation. To have authorship is ... and feels like a more adult job."

“Eve,” starring Hollywood veterans Lauren Bacall and Ben Gazzara as a gray haired couple made it to the festival’s "Corto-Cortissimo" (short and shortest) short film section and not only that, but was also the first film to be screened in this category. Portman briefly talked about her work as she was walking down the red carpet sporting a more of behind-the-camera outfit, as opposed to the chic dresses she wears when she makes her appearance as an actress.

"The film was definitely inspired by personal experience and also all my friends, female friends, starting to define themselves in relation, and in reaction to, their mothers and their grandmothers," she said.

Portman first came into the public eye with her electrifying role of young orphan Matilda emotionally attached to a professional killer played by French actor Jean Reno, in Luc Besson's 1990s hit "Leon" and made one wise decision after another in choosing roles, giving the tabloids no reasons for gossip.

She is also a vegetarian since childhood and a well known humanitarian, which caused another “premiere” in Venice: Portman received the festival’s first “Movie for Humanity” award and was presented with a $50,000 grant, which she earmarked to benefit a Tanzanian scholarship program for underprivileged and gifted girls run by the Jane Goodall Institute.

Although she’s not at all underprivileged, Portman is a gifted girl herself and critics say we haven’t seen the last of her as an actress and as a director as well.