Apichatpong Weerasethakul to head Orizzonti jury at Venice

Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul will preside over the Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti jury, the Biennale announced on Wednesday (June 15).

Weerasethakul competed in Venice’s main competition in 2006 with Syndromes And A Century, and won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2010 with Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.

The director will be leading a five-person jury that will vote on Orizzonti’s four prizes: the Orizzonti prize for feature-length films, the Special Orizzonti Jury Prize, the Orizzonti Short Film Prize and the Orizzonti Medium-length prize.

The section was revamped last year to focus on cutting-edge films (for which it was previously already designed) as well as non-standard formats.

Italian filmmaker Carlo Mazzacurati will lead the Luigi De Laurentiis Venice Award for a Debut Film, also known as the ‘Lion of the Future’ award. The prize goes to the best debut across sections of the festival and comes with $100,000 in prize money from Aurelio De Laurentiis’ Filmauro, which is divided equally between the film’s director and producer. Mazzacurati competed in Venice in 2010 with his film La Passione.

Finally, Italian director Roberta Torre will lead the Controcampo Italiano section, which has become a showcase of trends in Italian cinema. The winner of that award receives $57,000 (Euro 40,000) in negative film from Kodak. Torre herself is a Venice prizewinner: she won the Lion of the Future prize in 1997 with her debut Tano Da Morire. Her Lost Kisses (Baci Mai Dati) opened the Controcampo section in 2010 before going on to be the only Italian film selected for the Sundance Film Festival.

The 68th edition of the Venice film festival runs August 31-September 10.

The full line up will be announced in Rome on July 28.