The Juries for the Orizzonti section and the “Luigi de Laurentiis” Award for a Debut Film

The International Juries have been selected for Orizzonti and for the “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film, of the 81^st Venice International Film Festival (28 August - 7 September 2024) of La Biennale di Venezia, directed by Alberto Barbera.

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

• Debra Granik – president, American director and screenwriter. Her 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. Her first film, Down to the Bone won Granik the Best Director prize at the 2004 Sundance. In 2015, Granik completed the feature documentary Stray Dog. Her 2018 film, Leave No Trace, was presented at Sundance and Cannes. She has just finished editing the five-part documentary Conbody VS Everybody. Her next project is an adaptation of Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich.
• Ali Asgari, writer, director and producer, born in Tehran, Iran. Ali Asgari is a prominent Iranian independent filmmaker with many international awards to his name. Asgari’s films are concerned with precarious lives who live at society's margin in his native country Iran. His short films were screened in many important Film festivals around the world. His debut film Disappearance had its world and North American premiere at Venice International Film Festival and Toronto Film Festival 2017. His second feature film, Until Tomorrow, was premiered in Berlinale 2022 and Terrestrial Verses his third film, was premiered at Un Certain Regard section in the Festival de Cannes 2023.
• Soudade Kaadan, Syrian film director and screenwriter, based in London. She gained international recognition with her debut feature film, The Day I Lost My Shadow, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2018 and won the Lion of the Future Award for Best Debut Film. The film was screened in many festivals including TIFF, BFI London, Busan and IFFR. Her short fiction film Aziza won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize in 2019. Her second feature film Nezouh won the ARMANI BEAUTY Audience Award at the Venice Film Festival in 2022, making her the only Arab woman director to win twice in Venice.
• Christos Nikou, Greek director, screenwriter and producer. His short film KM (2012) participated in over 40 international film festivals. His first feature film Apples opened the Venice Orizzonti section in 2020. Greece’s submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, Apples was named one of the top five international films by the National Board of Review. In 2023, Nikou made his English-language debut with Fingernails, which he directed, co-wrote and co-produced with Cate Blanchett’s Dirty Films and Filmnation. At the moment Nikou is working on his third feature film, entitled Background.
• Tuva Novotny, Swedish actress and director. She started as an actress at the age of 16. In 2010 she made her directorial debut with the series Dag, followed by a couple of episodes in the Netflix-series Lilyhammer. In 2018 she wrote and directed Blindspot, which brought home the main prizes of the Norwegian Kanon-award, winning best script, and director. Shortly after, Britt-Marie Was Here, was released, also written and directed by Novotny, which became a box office hit in Sweden. She is currently writing the feature film Dobbeltmennesket for director Jonas Arnby, as well as the series Det Kongelige Teater, and has just released her newest movie Diorama, which she also wrote and directed. She recently starred in The Abyss (2023) and in All and Eve (2024) and is developing Home with Snowglobe Pictures, as a writer/director.
• Gábor Reisz, Hungarian filmmaker. His debut feature, For Some Inexplicable Reason (2014), premiered at Karlovy Vary and became a big success both at the box office and on the festival circuit. In 2015, he was invited to the Cannes Residence program, where he developed his second feature Bad Poems (2018). The film went on to win 16 awards, including best Hungarian film of 2018 and made a major impression in local cinemas. Explanation for Everything (2023), his third feature film, won the Orizzonti Award for Best Film in Venice and the Gold Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival.
• Valia Santella, Italian screenwriter and director. She has worked in the past as a script supervisor and assistant director. Since 2010 she has collaborated as a screenwriter with some of the most renowned Italian directors including Marco Bellocchio, Leonardo Di Costanzo, Valeria Golino, and Nanni Moretti. In 2001 she made the documentary film Nel nome del popolo italiano and in 2004 her first feature film Te lo leggo negli occhi, both produced by Sacher Film. In 2006 she directed several episodes of the TV series Il vizio dell’amore. She is currently working on post-production for the TV series Prima di noi, of which she directed several episodes.

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.

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.

• Gianni Canova - president, Italian film critic. He is the Rector of the Università IULM in Milan, where he is a full professor and teaches History of Film and Filmology. The founder of the monthly film and visual culture magazine “Duel” (later renamed “Duellanti”), he has been a film critic for “Il Manifesto”, “La Repubblica”, “Sette” for “Il Corriere della Sera” and Indro Montanelli’s “La Voce”. He is the author of essays and the editor of major works such as the Enciclopedia del Cinema published by Garzanti, and has organised many multimedia exhibitions. He is currently a writer and host of the TV programme Il Cinemaniaco on Sky Cinema. Since 2024 he has chaired the Scientific Committee of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome.
• Ricky D’Ambrose, American writer and director. His second feature, The Cathedral, was a recipient of the Venice Biennale College Cinema Feature Film Grant and had its world premiere at the 78th Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at Sundance. The film received the prestigious John Cassavetes Award at the 2023 Independent Spirit Awards and was a Gotham Award nominee for Best Film. His short films and first feature, Notes on an Appearance, have screened at festivals internationally, including Berlin, Rotterdam, Vienna, the New York Film Festival, and New Directors/New Films. In 2017, he was named one of Filmmaker magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film, as well as one of the decade’s Best New Filmmakers by Richard Brody of the New Yorker magazine. He is currently developing his third feature.
• Barbara Paz, Brazilian director, visual artist, actress and producer. In 2019 she directed Babenco – Tell me when I die that won the Venice Classics Award for Best Documentary on Cinema. The film became Brazil’s official submission for Best International Feature Film. Bárbara Paz starred in numerous films, including My Hindu Friend by Hector Babenco, and she has acted in over 25 plays. For her accomplishments as an actress, she received the Medalha Cavaleiro 2013 from the Ministry of Culture. She has appeared in various TV series and soap operas, and she hosted the TV show A Arte do Encontro on Canal Brasil.
• Taylor Russell, 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 made her stage debut last year in director Jamie Lloyd's critically acclaimed revival of Lucy Prebble's play, The Effect. Russell starred opposite Timothée Chalamet in Luca Guadagnino's feature, Bones and All. The film premiered at Venice where Russell won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Emerging Actress and was nominated for a Gotham award as well as the Independent Spirit award. She also received nominations from both festivals for her performance in Trey Edward Shults’ A24 feature Waves and won the Breakthrough Actor Award at the Gotham Awards. She made her directorial debut with the short documentary The Heart Still Hums, which she co-directed and won Best Documentary Short at the Palm Springs Int. ShortFest.
• Jacob Wong, film festival curator and project market director. He has been associated with the Hong Kong Film Festival for over two decades as Curator and Director of the HAF Project Market. He is currently Director of the Industry Office which engages such activities as project markets, film labs and co-productions. It has co-produced short films by Jia Zhangke, Tsai Ming-Liang, Mohammad Makhmalbaf, Kurosawa Kiyoshi, Brillante Mendoza and Christopher Doyle, and fiction features by Ishii Yuya, Tan Chui Mui and others.  He is the Berlinale's Delegate for Chinese films; and program advisor of the Nara IFF (Japan).  

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.

All the official awards will be announced during the closing ceremony of the 81^st Venice International Film Festival on Saturday, September 7 on the stage of the Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema at the Venice Lido.