“The jury of the Competition necessarily needs strong, credible and reliable personalities – said director Alberto Barbera –, immediately recognizable not only from a media point of view, but also and above all from a thematic and expressive one. In this edition we have mainly involved directors, coordinated by an iconic personality like Isabelle Huppert that we have been very happy to host at the Lido in recent years.”.
Isabelle Huppert, President
Actress (France)
She has never been precisely an actress, or perhaps she was in her early films. Then she became light, wind, magnetic force, a vibrating density that draws energy from the screen and sends it back into the world. Coldness and warmth, instinct and geometric spirit: Isabelle Huppert, the irresistible charisma of the non-diva.
James Gray
Director and screenwriter (USA)
Those who call him “the greatest unsuccessful director in the USA” are right. Yet he is a master; all his films are beautiful, they’re examples of a new American classicism, starting with his first, Little Odessa from 1994. In each of his works, his unique ability to creatively and freely reinterpret the genre, without any conventional constraints, stands out. And after Allen, he is the director of New York: it’s not Manhattan that Gray pays homage to with his camera, but Brighton Beach, just steps away from Coney Island.
Andrew Haig
Director and screenwriter (UK)
Lives that have been together for 45 years, only to suddenly lose the glue that held them together; lives that cross paths for a single night, desperately seeking stability in passion. This is what Andrew Haigh explores in his films: the invention of possible ways, whether in wild fantasy or within the confines of life’s banalities, to transform impulses into reason, into the hope of an unbroken dialogue.
Agneszka Holland
Director, screenwriter, producer (Poland)
With her multifaceted interest in History – one might say a very Polish approach – whether depicted as the biography of great European artists or as a fresco in which human lives unfold, Holland has always maintained, throughout her artistic journey spanning over 50 years, an ironic, almost sarcastic gaze. This has served as a tool for a broader meditation on the absurdity of human actions.
Kleber Mendonça Filho
Director, screenwriter and film programmer (Brazil)
A Brazilian journalist and film critic, he began producing experimental works in the 2000s. In 2002, he achieved success with his first feature film, Neighboring Sounds. In 2019, his second film, Bacurau, was released.
Abderrahman Sissako
Director, screenwriter and producer (Mauritania)
An internationally renowned filmmaker, he has gradually evolved from an approach where African colonial history was filtered through a strong inclination for poetic imagery to more recent works (Timbuktu, 2014) where his historical perspective on the takeover of Timbuktu by Islamic fundamentalist groups becomes harsh and uncompromising.
Giuseppe Tornatore
Director and screenwriter (Italy)
A true cinema craftsman and cinephile, he has spent forty years capturing Italian life, with nearly all his films deeply rooted in his native Sicily. In 1990, he won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film with Cinema Paradiso, and in 1996, he received a nomination for The Star Maker. His final film, Ennio, is an unforgettable memoir of the life and soundtracks of Morricone, a masterpiece of archival research and artistic devotion.
Julia von Heinz
Director and screenwriter (Germany)
Despite having directed numerous films, few have been widely seen in Italy. One notable work is And Tomorrow the Entire World, which competed at the Venice Film Festival in 2020. This film focuses on a group of young antifascist activists opposing a group of far-right nationalists.
Zhang Ziyi
Actress (People’s Republic of China)
Rising to global fame with Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, she became a specialist in wuxia blockbuster roles, starring in two masterpieces by Zhang Yimou: Hero and House of Flying Daggers. In 2021, she made her directorial debut by directing one of the four segments of the film My Country, My Parents, which was a major success in China.
Debra Granik, President
Director and screenwriter (USA)
Ali Asgari
Screenwriter, director and producer (Iran)
Iranian filmmaker who studied film in Rome, his films show lives that come into conflict with the Iranian theocracy: its institutions, its laws, its politics. Italian distributors have a quirky little thing for changing the titles of his movies altogether, so Earth Poems, taken from a poem by Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad, became known as Kafka in Tehran.
Soudade Kaadan
Director and screenwriter (Sirya)
A Londoner by choice, Kaadan won the Lion of the Future at the 2018 Venice Film Festival with The Day I Lost My Shadow. Her second feature, Nezouh of 2022, was also presented at Venice. Both films show despair and folly in bomb-shelled Damascus.
Christos Nikou
Screenwriter, director and producer (Greece)
Lanthimos, Avranas, Makridis, and Nikou – Greek cinema seems to be doing fairly well. Like few other production markets in the world, Greece’s reflects on the ethical and sentimental smothering force that inhabits the houses of men, that dark malaise that begets silent horror, lost memories, and abyss between generations. Nikou directed Apples, presented at the 2020 Venice Film Festival.
Tuva Novotny
Actress and director (Sweden)
Swedish actress and filmmaker, Novotny made several films, only a handful of which have been distributed in Italy, though certainly not because of her acting (Eat Pray Love).
Gabor Reisz
Director (Hungary)
Altro giovane regista di talento presente in questa bella giuria. Ungherese, con Una spiegazione per tutto ha vinto Orizzonti 2023. È la storia di un esame di maturità di un giovane che diviene una sorta di trincea, di conflitto tra i conservatori seguaci di Orbàn e i progressisti che lo contestano.
Valia Santella
Actress and director (Italy)
Nasce in teatro come assistente e aiuto alla regia, poi passa alla regia di corti e di un lungometraggio, Te lo leggo negli occhi con la Sandrelli, per stabilizzarsi infine nella sceneggiatura. In questo direzione inanella una serie di lavori di buona ed ottima fattura (Miele ed Euforia per la regia di Valeria Golino, Napoli velata di Ferzan Özpetek, Il traditore di Marco Bellocchio).
Gianni Canova, President
Film critic (Italy)
Gianni Canova embodies the challenging journey of transforming an all-consuming passion for cinema into a true professional adventure, marked by multiple interests and occasional setbacks. This journey, achieved through seizing opportunities, taking risky gambles, and applying a managerial vision to the world, always has cinema as its cultural foundation, but approaches it through the fascinating versatility of its many forms. Gianni Canova has founded magazines, curated exhibitions, taught cinema, written books, and presented films on television. Most recently, in 2018, he was appointed rector of IULM in Milan, becoming the first cinema professor to ascend to the position of university rector.
Ricky D’Ambrose
Screenwriter and director (USA)
A young independent American director, his second film, The Cathedral, produced by Biennale College Cinema, tells the story of twenty years in the life of young Jesse through a family album. Postcards, photographs, letters, memories: it’s a story narrated through family recollections, much like Annie Ernaux does in her books and as Catarina Vasconcelos did in her film The Metamorphosis of Birds.
Bárbara Paz
Director, artist, actress, producer (Brazil)
Her documentary Babenco, Tell Me When I Die, focused on the final period of her husband, director Hector Babenco’s life, was awarded at the Venice Film Festival in 2019. A talented and multidisciplinary artist, she won the first edition of the Carioca reality show Casa das Artistas.
Taylor Russell
Actress and director (Canada)
The Canadian actress also found success at the Lido, winning the Marcello Mastroianni Award for her performance in Guadagnino’s Bones and All. Before that, she played a role in Trey Edward Shults’ Waves, a film that I inexplicably persist in considering a masterpiece.
Jacob Wong
Festival curator and project market director (China)
A great connoisseur of Far East cinema, he has co-produced works by renowned directors such as Jia Zhangke, Tsai Ming Liang, and Mohammad Makhmalbaf. He also serves as the Berlinale delegate for Chinese cinema.
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