Venice 2021: The Jury
Wednesday, July 21, 2021 at 10:55AM by Nathaniel R
With Cannes wrapped we move on to the fall festival buzz. Next up is Venice (September 1st-11th) and we are thrilled to report that Elisa Giudici, our Italian correspondent who did such a fine job covering Cannes, will repeat that trick for Venice. The 78th Venice festival has just announced the complete jury for its competition films. Like Cannes, they've chosen a majority female jury this time around. Unlike Cannes they went big on very recent Oscar nominees and winners...
BONG JOON HO 🇰🇷
The Oscar winning master behind Parasite (2019) and other fabulous films like Snowpiercer (2013), Mother (2009), The Host (2006) will preside over the jury.
SAVERIO COSTANZO 🇮🇹
He helms both film (Hungry Hearts, In Memory of Me) and television (the Italian version of In Treatment and recently My Brilliant Friend) and is the only Italian on the Venice jury this year.
VIRGINIE EFIRA 🇧🇪
The Belgian star of this year's controversial lesbian nun drama Benedetta (review) jumps from French to Italian red carpets but she's on the jury this time rather than promoting her film.
CYNTHIA ERIVO 🇬🇧
The awards magnet actress whose already won a Tony and a Grammy (both for The Color Purple) and been Oscar (Harriet) and Emmy nominated (Genius: Aretha Franklin) is doing her first big film festival jury.
SARAH GADON 🇨🇦
The Cronenberg favourite (Cosmopolis, A Dangerous Method, Antiviral) has three movies in post production so she's made room for jury duty!
ALEXANDER NANAU 🇷🇴
Hot off his double Oscar nomination trick for the Romanian documentary Collective, he joins the Venice jury.
CHLOE ZHAO 🇨🇳
She's had a very busy year, shepherding her stunning feature Nomadland through the pandemic to three Oscar wins (including Best Picture) while finishing up the Marvel Studios release The Eternals. And now a wee break for film festival jury duty before what will surely be a mammoth promotional blitz in the winter for the Marvel picture.
Reader Comments (14)
Erivo, awards magnet or category filler?
Yay, Elisa will be back! I'll finally pay attention to this film festival.
Peggy!
Bong AND Zhao feels like a bit too much. Is the world ending? Can't they preside in two alternate years?
@Peggy Sue... Bong + Zhao + Nanau.
*dies*
Chloe Zhao is American!
Is that a wig he's wearing?
@Tyler, yeah, that's like putting the flag of Nigeria following Cynthia Erivo's name. ;-)
Mareko & Tyler -- according to the internet Chloe Zhao is a Chinese national still. She didn't leave China until she was about 15 or 16. so i'm not sure how that's comparable to calling Erivo Nigerian (which I didn't ) since Erivo was born and raised in the UK
But yes, Zhao is best known for her American indies.
Elisa!
The whole Parasite cast and crew are still doing a victory lap and I am LOVING it.
I do think Erivo does not have enough filmography to be judging a film festival.
And a little addition. she ALSO won an Emmy for The Color Purple, only lacking an Oscar, which I am sure she will also get if that musical ever get a movie treatment.
It's so good to hear that Elisa will be covering Venice. Her Cannes coverage was terrific.
Interesting jury and the piece's author acting nice in the comments? Love to see it, keep Nathaniel's energy y'all!
Scarlet -- the writers are always nice here unless people are misbehaving and then it's just trying to course correct. Asking people to be kind and not insult people who work or hang out here is not acting "mean". It's just us letting people know that the site is meant to be welcoming and friendly and not abusive towards the staff or the commenters. I wish we didn't have to keep explaining this. Thanks.
Edward -- i thought so too. So happy she's going for round two so soon.