The Tokyo International Film Festival has announced that award-winning director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu will be the jury president of the international competition at the festival’s 22nd edition (Oct 17-25).

Inarritu is returning to the festival for the first time since he was awarded the Grand Prix for his debut film Amores Perros at the 13th Tokyo fest in 2000. He also set a portion of his award-winning 2006 feature Babel in Tokyo. The film won him the best director prize at Cannes.

“TIFF has been, for years, an important and generous festival for filmmakers around the world to meet,” said Inarritu. “Japan’s culture and film traditions have had a personal impact on me and inspire in me respect and admiration. I am honored to preside at the 22nd TIFF and I am looking forward to finding new voices that will generate in us catharsis and reflection.”

Tokyo will announce its competition line-up and the rest of its programme next month. The festival also features a contents market TIFFCOM (Oct 20-22) and a co-production market TokyoProject Gathering (Oct 19-22).