At the age of 38, director Damien Chazelle has already had astonishing film successes. For one thing, he’s the youngest director to win an Oscar for Best Director. On the other hand, he achieved a sensational 14 Oscar nominations with his musical film “La La Land”. Only “Titanic” and the 1950s classic “Everything about Eva” were able to do this. In 2015, his music film “Whiplash” also won three Oscars.
After his huge success with “La La Land”, Hollywood star Bradley Cooper (48) declared him Hollywood’s “next great director”. Now the next honor awaits him at this year’s 80th Venice Film Festival. It has been confirmed that Chazelle will chair the main jury at the film festival, which runs from August 30th to September 9th. Together with the other jury members, he decides which films will be awarded the main prize of the festival, the Golden Lion. The director Alice Diop (44, “Saint Omer”) and the filmmaker Jonas Carpignano (39, “Mediterranea”) were appointed as chairmen of other juries.
Damien Chazelle was delighted with his appointment as jury president: “Every year this city of arts, of Tintoretto, Titian and Veronese, becomes a city of cinema for ten days and I am honored and delighted to have been invited to chair this year’s jury. I can’t wait to discover a new generation of great films at the 80th Venice Film Festival.”
