And they include one of my all-time favorite filmmakers, Soudade Kaadan, along with American director and screenwriter Debra Granik, and Canadian actress Taylor Russell.

The international juries have been announced for the Orizzonti section as well as for the “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film for the upcoming 81st Venice International Film Festival. The yearly festival on the Lido will take place from the 28th of August to the 7th of September 2024, once again under the direction of Alberto Barbera.

Chaired by American director and screenwriter Debra Granik, the international jury of Orizzonti will also include Syrian film director and screenwriter Soudade Kaadan; Greek director, screenwriter and producer Christos Nikou; Swedish actress and director Tuva Novotny; Hungarian filmmaker Gábor Reisz; Iranian writer, director and producer Ali Asgari; and Italian screenwriter and director Valia Santella.

Chaired by Italian film critic Gianni Canova, the international jury of the “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film will also include American writer and director Ricky D’Ambrose; Brazilian director, visual artist, actress and producer Barbara Paz; Canadian actress and director Taylor Russell; film festival curator and project market director Jacob Wong.

Kaadan is a personal favorite, both as an artist of the 7th art, but also as an interview and all around cool personality. When I, wrongly, bunched her latest masterpiece, the dreamy Nezouh, in with other films from the Region which promote a kind of “conflict porn,” Kaadan reached out to me and, kindly, asked me to watch the film first, before making up my mind. That’s classy. And she was right, as Nezouh, which debuted in the Orizzonti Extra section in Venice in 2022, won my heart with its magical realism feel and teenage love story, portrayed against a backdrop of a father struggling to make his family’s life “normal” during conflict. But the film also deservedly walked away with the Armani Beauty Orizzonti Extra Audience Award, the only award handed out in that category — a sidebar of gems not in competition. The public always knows best.

You can read an interview with Kaadan here.

Orizzonti jury chair Debra Granik’s film Winter's Bone won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance 2010 and was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay for Granik and co-writer Anne Rosellini. She’s also known for Stray Dog, Conbody VS Everybody and Leave No Trace.

The Orizzonti Jury will award the following prizes, with no joint awards allowed: 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, Orizzonti Award for Best Short Film.

Gianni Canova has been a film critic for Il Manifesto, La Repubblica, Sette for Il Corriere della Sera and Indro Montanelli’s La Voce. Currently he’s a writer and host of the TV programme Il Cinemaniaco on Sky Cinema.

Taylor Russell is an award-winning actress and director from Canada. Russell will shortly be seen in the Korean thriller Hope by Na Hong-jin, and in Mother, Couch! by Niclas Larsson. She was last on the Lido when she starred opposite Timothée Chalamet in Luca Guadagnino's feature, Bones and All.

The Jury of the Venice Award for a Debut Film will award to one of the debut feature-length films selected from the various competitive sections of the Venice Film Festival (Official Selection and Independent and Parallel Sidebars), with no joint awards allowed, the Lion of the Future – “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film, with the cash prize of 100,000 USD donated by Filmauro, will be divided equally between the director and the producer.

For the complete press release, check out La Biennale’s website.