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

The International Juries have been selected for the Orizzonti section and the “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film of the 79^th Venice International Film Festival of La Biennale di Venezia (31 August -10 September 2022), directed by Alberto Barbera.

The following are the personalities convened as members of the two international Juries.

Isabel Coixet – President (Spain) is a director, screenwriter and producer. Her international success came in 2003 with the intimate drama My Life Without Me. Two years later The Secret Life of Words was awarded 4 Goyas. In 2017 Coixet released The Bookshop, which won Best Director, Film and Adapted Screenplay at the Goyas. In 2019 she filmed her first series for HBO, Foodie Love, and in 2020, It Snows in Benidorm, produced by El Deseo.

Laura Bispuri (Italy), director, won the David di Donatello for her first short film Passing Time. Her first feature film, Sworn Virgin, was presented in Competition at the Berlin Film Festival. Her second film, Daughter of Mine, was also in Competition at the Berlin Film Festival. Her third feature film, The Peacock’s Paradise, was presented in the Orizzonti section of the Venice International Film Festival.

Antonio Campos (USA), director, screenwriter and producer. In 2005 his short film Buy It Now won first prize in Cannes Cinéfondation category. His first feature film Afterschool was presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008 in the Un Certain Regard section. His latest film, The Devil All the Time, with Robert Pattinson and Tom Holland, was released on Netflix in 2020. Most recently, he created, wrote and directed The Staircase, a limited series on HBO Max starring Colin Firth, Toni Collette and Juliette Binoche.

Sofia Djama (Algeria) born in Oran, moved to Algiers to complete the Bachelor’s degree in Literature she started in Bejaia. Softly, One Saturday Morning, an adaptation of one of her short stories, was her first short film. It was widely acclaimed and received two awards in Clermont Ferrand. In 2017 her first feature film, The Blessed, won the Orizzonti Award for Best Actress for Lyna Khoudri.

Edouard Waintrop (France) worked over more than a quarter century for the Parisian daily newspaper Libération. In 2007, he became the artistic director of the Fribourg International Film Festival in Switzerland and in 2011, of the Directors Fortnight at Cannes, where he held this position for 7 years.

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.

Michelangelo Frammartino – President (Italy), director. His debut film The Gift (2003), presented at the Locarno Film Festival, was followed by The Four Times (2010), presented at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at Cannes, where it won the Europa Cinemas Label award. In April 2013, he presented the single-channel video installation Alberi in the Dome at MoMA PS1 in New York. The Hole was presented in competition in Venice in 2021, where it won the Special Jury Prize.

Jan P. Matuszynski (Poland) is a director and screenwriter. His documentary Deep Love won, among others, the Best Documentary Award at the 36th International Film Festival in Moscow and the Silver Horn award for Best Feature Documentary Film at the 54th Kraköw Film Festival. His feature debut, Ostatnia rodzina, premiered at Locarno, where it won the Best Actor Award. Leave no Traces (2021), his latest film, was screened in competition in Venice.

Ana Rocha de Sousa (Portugal) is a director, screenwriter and artist who began her career as an actress. Her debut feature, Listen, premiered at the 77^th Venice Film Festival winning not only the Lion of the future but also the Special Orizzonti Jury Prize. Adding to it, that year, other parallel Venice awards.

Tessa Thompson (USA) is an actress and producer. Most recently, Thompson can be seen as ‘Valkyrie’ in Marvel’s Thor: Love and Thunder which was released in theatres in July 2022. She is a BAFTA nominated actress for her role in Rebecca Hall’s directorial debut Passing (2021). In 2020, Thompson starred in Amazon Prime’s Sylvie’s Love, which she Executive Produced. Thompson is currently in post-production of Creed III which is set to release in March 2023. Thompson’s past film credits include the Creed franchise, Selma (2014) and Dear White People (2014). Thompson can also be seen starring on television in HBO’s Westworld Season 4. Her production company Viva Maude is also actively in development on several projects including Secret Lives of Church Ladies, Luster and Who Fears Death.

Rosalie Varda (France) is a French producer and costume designer. In 2018 she was nominated for an Oscar as the producer of the film Visages villages. She designed the costumes for the films Passion (1982) by Jean-Luc Godard, Une chambre en ville (1982) by Jacques Demy and One Hundred and One Nights (1995) by Agnès Varda.

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 a cash prize of 100,000 USD donated by Filmauro, to be divided equally between the director and the producer.