French director Francois Ozon has dared to do what so many other filmmakers have shied away from -- adapting one of French literature's most-read classics, Albert Camus's "The Stranger", for the big screen.

The "8 Women" director said this week he had rediscovered Camus's 1942 novel after first reading it in school like so many other French teenagers -- but not really understanding its deeper absurdist meaning.

"I was shocked reading it because the book was still so strong, so powerful, so mysterious and so I was excited," Ozon told journalists at the Venice Film Festival where "The Stranger" premiered on Tuesday.

"It was a big challenge because when I decided to make it, so many French people told me, 'It's my favorite book, I'm curious to see what........

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