Gray to chair competition jury, Clark on CinemaXXI duty.

Writer-directors James Gray and Larry Clark have been appointed to lead the Rome International Film Festival’s (Nov 8-17) competition and CinemaXXI juries, respectively.

Gray, director of The Yards and The Immigrant, will be joined by six other jurors, to be announced in the coming weeks.

The jury will present the Golden Marc’Aurelio Award for Best Film, the Best Director Award, the Special Jury Prize, the Best Actor and Best Actress Awards, the Award for Emerging Actor or Actress, the Award for Best Technical Contribution, and the Award for Best Screenplay.

Kids director Clark won Rome’s Golden Marc’Aurelio Award last year for his drama Marfa Girl.

Clark, who will be joined by four other jurors, will assign the CinemaXXI Award, the Special Jury Prize – CinemaXXI (both reserved for feature-length films), and the CinemaXXI Award for Short Films.

Artistic director Marco Mueller said of Gray: “To be creative, it is not enough to want to break the rules: first you have to know them inside out. James Gray’s modern cinema is the product of his capacity to go back to the basics of filmmaking, to Griffith-Murnau-Ford.

“In five films (over the course of a 20-year career), he has succeeded in building a strong and coherent body of work, he has traced an extremely personal path through the many production modes of American cinema (from independent cinema to the majors), stretching them to coincide each time with his artistic project.

“James Gray is a filmmaker who knows and loves film in all its forms - an ideal president for our 2013 Jury”.

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