French actress Isabelle Huppert (Michael Haneke’s SheThe piano teacher, Ceremony) will chair the international jury of the competition at 81st Venice International Film Festival, which will take place from August 28 to September. 7.
The jury will decide the Golden Lion for best film, as well as other official awards.
The decision regarding the head of the jury was made by the board of directors of the Venice Biennale on the recommendation of the director of the Venice Film Festival, Alberto Barbera.
Huppert said: “There is a long and beautiful history between the festival and me. Becoming a privileged spectator is an honor. More than ever, cinema is a promise. The promise of escaping, of shaking up, of surprising, of taking a good look at the world, united in the difference of our tastes and our ideas.
Barbera praised Huppert as “an immense actress, demanding, curious and very generous.”
And added: “Muse of many great filmmakers, she never refused the invitation of young or lesser-known directors who saw in her the ideal interpreter of their stories. Her enormous desire to constantly put herself in danger, a sign of her extraordinary intelligence, as well as her ability to look at cinema beyond geographical and mental boundaries, make her the ideal jury president of a festival open to the whole world, such as the Venice Film Festival.
