MarcoMueller has been re-confirmed as the artistic director of the Venice FilmFestival for a further three years.

The Biennale appointed Mueller in March on a four-yearcontract, although it reserved itself the right to "carefully examine thefestival's results at the end of that year's edition."

In spiteof the organisational chaos that marred the last Venice Film Festival, Mueller,who enjoys widespread support among the international film community, had beenwidely expected to stay on.

At aBiennale board meeting on Tuesday, president Davide Croff underplayed the havoccaused by lengthy delays and ticketing problems during the festival.

"Therewere some organisational problems, but they are easy to resolve," he said.

"Wehave examined all aspects of the last festival, both positive and negative.[...] We have come to the conclusion that the Mostra was so rich that itsuffered from an overload of richness, which caused problems and delays. Therewere organisational difficulties, but these weren't any worse than previousyears, although the ticketing problems at The Merchant Of Venice galascreening (for which 200 tickets were sold twice) did emphasize them,"Croff said.

Nevertheless,Croff did say that the Biennale is already working at improving the event. "The problems we faced aren't down toindividual responsibility. But we do need staff who can act as a go-between thefestival and the Biennale. And we need to globally work on the festival'sstructure."

Both Croffand Mueller have partly blamed the delays on the high number of A-list starswho attended the festival within a few days. Many of these were accompanyingthe festival's 16 out-of-competition titles.

Muellerhas said that next year, there will be fewer films in each section and possiblyfewer sidebars. He underlined thatthere simply aren't enough screens on the Lido to house all the parallelsections.

OnTuesday, Croff confirmed that Venice will streamline next year's event, whichwill have no more than four or five out-of-competition films.

Croff alsosaid that Venice will follow in the footsteps of Cannes and allow each film toreceive only one major prize.

Italiansthis year raised criticism at the fact that the jury by-passed local favourite TheHouse Keys, and instead awarded two prizes each to Vera Drake -which won the Golden Lion and Best Actress prize - and The Sea Inside,which won the Grand Jury Prize and the Best Actor award.