Damien Chazelle Named President of the Jury for the 80th Venice Film Festival

Now that Cannes has announced its jury for 76th edition of its festival, Venice boss Alberto Barbera has decided to announce his own jury President and it’s none other than Damien Chazelle.

Chazelle will preside over the jury, which hasn’t been announced yet, and will do so as we’re starting to get a clearer picture as to what films might show up on the Lido in September.

Chazelle is the filmmaker behind “Whiplash,” “La La Land” and “Babylon,” he’s 38 years old and just getting started in making his mark on the industry. It’s an inspired choice from Barbera and marks his attempt to have heavyweight Hollywood filmmakers at the reign of his juries.

Over the last 10+ years, Barbera has had Quentin Tarantino, Darren Aronofsky, Bernardo Bertolucci, Michael Mann, Alfonso Cuaron, Sam Mendes, Guillermo del Toro, Lucrecia Martel and Bong Joon-ho preside over his juries.

So, now that the Cannes lineup is 99% complete, what should we expect in Venice?

We already know that David Fincher’s “The Killer” and Hayao Miyazaki’s “How Do You Live” are severe maybes, they might not make it into the Lido this year. Steve McQueen’s “Blitz” is most likely not going to be ready, is it even a 2023 release at this point? Wes Anderson’s “Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” might also not be ready on time.

However, there are still plenty of titles for Barbera to choose from. These are the biggies that I’ve gathered:

Michael Mann’s “Ferrari”
Roman Polanski’s “The Palace”
Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro”
Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers”
Duke Johnson’s “The Actor”
Pablo Larrain’s “El Condo”
Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist”
Luc Besson’s “Dogman”
Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla”
Andrew Haigh’s “Strangers”
Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things”
Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers”
Michel Franco’s “Memory”
Bruno Dumont’s “L’Empire”
Joachim Lafosse’s “Un Silence”
Mateo Garrone’s “The Captain”
Cristi Puiu’s “MMXX”
Bertrand Bonnello’s “The Beast”
Kiril Serebrenikkov’s “Limonov”
Ladj Ly’s “Les Indesirables”
Xavier LeGrand’s “Le Successeur”
Richard Linklater’s “Hitman”
Kitty Green’s “The Royal Hotel”
Sean Durkin’s “The Iron Claw”
Woody Allen’s “Coup de Chance”
Jeff Nichols’ “The Bikeriders”
Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn”
Radu Jude’s “Do Not Expect too Much of the End”

Other contenders include Christos Nikou’s “Fingernails,” Viggo Mortensen’s “The Dead Don't Hurt,” Mareike Engelhardt’s “The Other Place,” Gu Xiaogang’s “Cao Mu Ren Jian,” Kobiela’s “The Peseants,” Alex Garland’s “Civil War,” Johanna Pyykkö’s “Ebba,” Jérémy Clapin’s “Pendant ce Temps sur Terre,” Mati Diop’s “Le Retour,” Meryam Joubeur’s “Motherhood,” Trueba/Marsical‘s I Shot the Piano Player,” Karim Dridi’s “Lazy Girls,” Benito Zambrano’s “El Salto,” Rose Glass’ “Love Lies Bleeding,” Fien Troch’s “Holly,” Phuttiphong Aroonpheng‘s “Morrison,” Gu Xiaogang‘a “Dwelling By The West Lake,” Juan Antonio Bayona‘s “Society of The Snow,” Lou Ye‘a “Suzhou River,” Lea Domenach’s “La Tortue,” Vanessa Filho’s “Le Consentement.”

Then we have the mandatory 4 or 5 Italian titles:

Lobo — Giorgio Diritti
Misericordia — Emma Dante
Confidenza — Daniele Luchetti
La bella estate — Laura Luchetti