The Oscar-winning director for “La La Land” will preside over the prestigious Italian film festival next summer.
American director Damien Chazelle will chair the jury of the 80th Venice Film Festival, which will award the Golden Lion to one of the films in competition on the Lido from August 30 to September 9, the festival announced on Friday.
“For ten days each year, this city of art of Tintoretto, Titian and Veronese is transformed into a city of cinema, and I am flattered and honored to be invited to chair the jury this year”, reacted the author Oscar winner of ‘La La Land’, quoted by the press release.
At only 38 years old, Damien Chazelle, whose film Babylon (2022) received three nominations at the last Oscars, is already a regular at the Mostra, where he opened in 2016 with La La Land and in 2018 with First Man.
Alice Diop, a French president of the jury
French filmmaker Alice Diop, 44, will chair the jury for the best first work, which will award the Lion of the Future, which she herself won in 2022 with the bonus of the Grand Jury Prize for her first feature. -fiction film, Saint Omer.
“It’s a great honor and a joy”, commented Alice Diop, welcoming “a festival which welcomed me and gave me so much last year”.
His film, also awarded the César for best first film and the Jean Vigo prize, was also France’s candidate for the Oscars.
Finally, the jury of the parallel section Orizzonti (Horizons) will be chaired by the Italian Jonas Carpignano, 39, author of Mediterranean (2015), presented at Critics’ Week in Cannes, and The Ciambra (2017).
Last year, the Venice Film Festival shone the spotlight on the drama of opiates by crowning a documentary on photographer Nan Goldin and her fierce fight against this health scandal which has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in the United States.
The jury chaired by actress Julianne Moore awarded its Golden Lion to director Laura Poitras, 58, thus crowning a third director in a row, after the French Audrey Diwan in 2021 (The Event) and Chinese-American Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) in 2020.
