French actor Isabelle Huppert has been named president of the international competition jury at the 81st Venice Film Festival (August 28 – September 7, 2024).
The prolific Huppert was Oscar-nominated for her performance in 2016 crime drama Elle.
“There is a long and beautiful history between the Festival and I,” said Huppert. ”Becoming a privileged spectator is an honour. More than ever, cinema is a promise. The promise to escape, to disrupt, to surprise, to take a good look at the world, united in the differences of our tastes and ideas.”
Huppert has twice won the Coppa Volpi for best actress at Venice, in 1988 for Story Of Women and in 1995 for La Cérémonie. She was also honoured by the festival in 2005 with a special Golden Lion for her overall work.
The actor first rose to fame in 1978 with Claude Chabrol’s Violette which won her best actress at Cannes. She has been nominated for 16 Cesar awards, winning two for Elle and La Cérémonie. In 2022, Huppert received an honourary Golden Bear at Berlinale.
“Isabelle Huppert is an immense actress, demanding, curious and of great generosity,” said festival director Alberto Barbera. “The muse of numerous great filmmakers, she has never shirked the invitation of young or not-so-famous directors who have seen in her the ideal interpreter of their stories.
”Her enormous willingness to constantly put herself on the line, a sign of her uncommon intelligence, together with her ability to look at cinema beyond geographic and mental boundaries, make her an ideal President of the Jury in a festival open to the entire world such as the Venice Film Festival.”
Last year’s Venice jury was presided by La La Land director Damien Chazelle with Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things winning the Golden Lion.
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