Alexander Payne is heading to Italy, as he’s been named the jury president for the upcoming Venice Film Festival.
The 82nd edition of the festival is scheduled from August 27 to September 6. Alongside fellow jurors, Payne will be responsible for selecting the recipient of the prestigious Golden Lion for best film.
“It’s an enormous honor and joy to serve on the jury at Venice,” Payne shared in an official statement. “Although I share a filmmaker’s ambivalence about comparing films against one another, I revere the Venice Film Festival’s nearly 100-year history of loudly celebrating film as an art form. I couldn’t be more excited.”
Notable past jury presidents include Isabelle Huppert (2024), Damien Chazelle (2023), Julianne Moore (2022), Bong Joon Ho (2021), and Cate Blanchett (2020). Each was selected by Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbera.
“Alexander Payne belongs to the small circle of filmmakers-cinephiles whose passion for cinema is fueled by knowledge of films of the past and curiosity about contemporary cinema, without boundaries or barriers of any kind,” said Barbera. “These qualities — along with his experience as a screenwriter — make him an ideal candidate to preside over the work of the Venice Jury, which is called upon to evaluate films from around the world. I am grateful to Alexander for accepting my invitation, which seals an acquaintance that goes back to the days of his graduation short film at UCLA.”
Payne has twice earned the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, first with “Sideways” (2004) and again with “The Descendants” (2011). His recent project, “The Holdovers” (2023), which was Best Picture nominated, earned an Oscar win for Da’Vine Joy Randolph in the Best Supporting Actress category.
Payne is currently working on three notable projects; the sequel to “Election,” a Western he is developing with ‘Holdovers’ writer David Hemingson, and he is currently in prep mode to shoot a Danish-language project in rural Denmark.