US director Damien Chazelle to head Venice Film Festival jury
ROME, Italy — US director Damien Chazelle, best known for the Oscar-winning "La La Land," will lead the jury of the upcoming Venice Film Festival, organizers announced Friday.
The 80th edition of the prestigious festival will take place from August 30 through September 9 on the swanky, beach-lined Lido island.
"For ten days each year this city of the arts, of Tintoretto and Titian and Veronese, becomes a city of cinema, and I am humbled and delighted to be invited to lead this year’s jury," said Chazelle, 38, whose most recent film is "Babylon."
Chazelle's musical about making it in Hollywood, "La La Land," opened the Venice festival in 2016, and went on to win six Academy Awards, including for its director, the youngest ever to win the prize.
Heading the jury for Venice's parallel competition, Orizzonti, will be Italy's Jonas Carpignano, director of a trilogy ("Mediterranea," "A Ciambra," "A Chiara") based in the Calabrian port city of Gioia Tauro.
Last year, the festival's top Golden Lion prize went to US director Laura Poitras for "All the Beauty and the Bloodshed." The documentary traced the campaign by photographer and activist Nan Goldin to hold the rich Sackler family accountable for the US opioid crisis.
US actress Julianne Moore headed last year's jury, with Spanish director Isabel Coixet at the helm of Orizzonti.
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