We aren’t even in the middle of the summer yet, with tons of blockbusters and high-profile films still on deck to hit theaters, but it’s time to think about the fall. Namely, it’s time to think about fall film festivals. And with the Venice Film Festival arriving on August 28, the film festival season isn’t that far away.
And with that in mind, Deadline is reporting that the Venice Film Festival is already beginning to put together its jury for the event and has chosen award-winning filmmaker Lucrecia Martel as its president. Martel will preside over the international jury for the upcoming festival, awarding the biggest prize of the event, the Golden Lion. Martel is probably best known for her work in films like “The Headless Woman” and “Zama.” The latter film is her most recent and made its premiere in Venice in 2017.
READ MORE: ‘Zama’ Filmmaker Lucrecia Martel To Team With Björk On A New Stage Production
“It’s an honor, a responsibility, and a pleasure to be a part of this celebration of cinema, of humanity’s immense desire to understand itself,” said Martel.
“Four feature films and a handful of shorts, in just under two decades, have been enough to make Lucrecia Martel Latin America’s most important female director, and one of the top worldwide,” said Alberto Barbara, Venice Film Festival artistic director. “In her films, the originality of her stylistic research and her meticulous mise-en-scène are at the service of a worldview free of compromises, dedicated to exploring the mysteries of female sexuality and the dynamics of groups and classes. We are grateful to her for having enthusiastically agreed to put her exacting, yet anything but uncharitable, gaze at the service of this commitment we have requested of her.”
Last year’s Venice saw the premiere of major awards contenders, including Alfonso Cuaron’s Oscar-winning film “Roma.” The festival has perhaps passed Cannes and even Toronto as the go-to festival if you have a film that is a sure-fire Oscar-contender. However, as last year’s “First Man” proved, even a critically-acclaimed film with a major release at Venice isn’t a guaranteed Oscar player.
As mentioned, this year’s Venice Film Festival begins August 28.