The Venice Film Festival has unveiled the official juries for its 82nd edition running from August 27-September 6.
On the main competition jury, previously announced jury president Alexander Payne, will be joined by French director and screenwriter Stéphane Brizé; Italian director and screenwriter Maura Delpero; Romanian director, writer and producer Cristian Mungiu; Iranian director and writer Mohammad Rasoulof; Brazilian actress, writer and screenwriter Fernanda Torres; and Chinese actress Zhao Tao.
They will decide the Golden Lion for Best Film; Silver Lion – Grand Jury Prize; Silver Lion for Best Director; Coppa Volpi for Best Actress; Coppa Volpi for Best Actor; Award for Best Screenplay; Special Jury Prize; and the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best New Young Actor or Actress.
A number of the jury members have Venice connections.
Brizé’s Another World (2021) and Out of Season (2023) premiered in Venice competition; Delpero world premiered her second film Vermiglio at the festival last year, winning the Silver Lion – Grand Jury Prize. Torres also made waves at Venice in 2024 for her performance in Walter Salles’ political drama I’m Still Here, which premiered in Competition winning the Best Screenplay award before going on to win the Oscar for Best International Feature.
Tao has made regular trips to Venice including with her breakout debut role Platform (2000) by Jia Zhang-Ke and then his Golden Lion winning 2006 film Still Life, returning in 2012 with Andrea Segre’s Shun Li and the Poet which was presented at Giornate degli Autori.
Cannes regular and Palme d’Or winner Mungiu (4 month, 3 weeks and 2 days, Beyond the Hills and Graduation) touches down at the festival for the first time, as does Rasoulof, whose most recent film The Seed of the Sacred Fig, premiered at Cannes in 2024, where it won the Special Jury Prize.
The Horizons (Orizzonti) jury will be chaired by French director and screenwriter Julia Ducournau, who will be joined by Italian director and video artist Yuri Ancarani; Argentine film critic Fernando Enrique Juan Lima; Australian director Shannon Murphy; American artist and filmmaker RaMell Ross.
They will award the Orizzonti Award for Best Film; Orizzonti Award for Best Director; Special Orizzonti Jury Prize; Orizzonti Award for Best Actress; Orizzonti Award for Best Actor, Orizzonti Award for Best Screenplay and Orizzonti Award for Best Short Film.
Ducournau, who won the Cannes Palme d’Or for Titane and was recently back at the festival with third feature Alpha, makes her Venice debut in the role.
Ancarani is a Venice regular. After making his Lido debut with short film The Chief in 2010, his documentary Atlantide was presented in Venice in the Orizzonti section in 2021, while his most recent documentary, Il Popolo delle Donne (2023) played in Giornate degli Autori.
Argentinian film Lima is also a regular Venice attendee, while Murphy touched down in Competition in Venice in 2019 with debut film Babyteeth, for which its lead Toby Wallace was awarded the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor. Nickel Boys director Ross will make his first appearance at the festival.
The jury for the Luigi De Laurentiis Venice Award for a best first feature will be chaired by UK film Charlotte Wells, who will be joined by French-Tunisian director and producer Erige Sehiri and Italian director and screenwriter Silvio Soldini.
New York-based Wells broke out with Aftersun, starring Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio, which premiered in Critics’ Week at Cannes and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
Sehiri was in Cannes this year with her second fiction feature Promised Sky, which premiered at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, having made waves with Under the Fig Tree in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.
Soldini’s 1993 fifth feature A Soul Split In Two won its star Fabrizio Bentivoglio Venice’s Coppa Volpi for Best Actor, ahead of the director breaking out internationally with 2000 box office hit Bread and Tulips.
His most recent film was The Tasters an adaptation of the eponymous novel by Rosella Postorino, featuring a German cast, which was released this year.
They will award to one of the debut feature-length films premiering in Venice either its Official Selection or one of the parallel sidebars the Lion of the Future – Luigi De Laurentiis Venice Award for a Debut Film, with a cash prize of $100,000 donated by Filmauro, to be divided equally between the director and the producer.