Actress Annette Bening will be the president of the International Jury of the Competition at the 74th Venice International Film Festival taking place August 30 to September 9, 2017, which will assign the Golden Lion for best film, as well as other official awards.
Says Festival Director Alberto Barbera: “It was time to break with a long list of male presidents and invite a brilliant talented and inspiring woman to chair our International competition jury. I am extremely happy that Annette Bening has accepted this role, which she will carry out by virtue of her stature, her intellect and the talents she has manifested over the course of her career, in Hollywood, Europe and on the stage. Hers is a career marked by always interesting, often daring choices. A sophisticated and instinctive actress, able to portray complex shadings of character, Annette Bening brings to her roles an understating, a warmth and a natural elegance that makes watching her films a wonderful and ever enriching experience. I welcome her to Venice”.
Says Annette Bening: “I’m honored to be asked to serve as the President of the jury for this year’s Venice Film Festival. I look forward to seeing the movies and working with my fellow jury members to celebrate the best of this year’s cinema from all over the world”.
Annette Bening is a four-time Academy Award nominee (The Grifters, 1991; American Beauty, 1999; Being Julia, 2004; The Kids Are All Right, 2010), two-time Golden Globe (Being Julia and The Kids Are All Right) and Screen Actors Guild Award winner (American Beauty). She was last seen in A24’s 20th Century Women directed by Mike Mills, for which she received her eighth Golden Globe nomination, opposite Elle Fanning, Greta Gerwig and Billy Crudup, as well as Warren Beatty’s Rules Don’t Apply with Alden Ehrenreich, Lily Collins and Warren Beatty. Upcoming for Annette is Michael Mayer’s adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s play The Seagull opposite Saoirse Ronan, Paul McGuigan’s Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool with Jamie Bell, and Dan Fogelman’s drama Life, Itself with Olivia Wilde, Oscar Isaac, Samuel L. Jackson and Antonio Banderas.