Darren Aronofsky to head Venice Film Festival jury
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Darren Aronofsky is heading back to Venice. The American auteur, whose dark ballet drama ‘Black Swan’ opened last year’s Venice Film Festival, will head the jury for the 68th annual affair, which begins Aug. 31 and runs for 11 days.
Aronofsky does not currently have a movie shooting; he was set to make Fox’s ‘The Wolverine’ but bowed out of the production for personal reasons.
In 2008, Aronofsky’s Mickey Rourke drama ‘The Wrestler’ won the top prize at Venice, the Golden Lion. Aronofsky also brought his romantic time-travel tale, ‘The Fountain,’ to the festival in 2006.
In a statement, festival organizers called Aronofsky a ‘key figure in contemporary film.’
The Venice Film Festival is considered an important stop for many Academy Awards awards hopefuls. Last year, Quentin Tarantino headed up the jury, which, in a controversial move, awarded the Golden Lion to Sofia Coppola’s moody, faded-celebrity study, ‘Somewhere.’
The news comes as another American filmmaking personality, actor-director Robert De Niro, gets set to head the Cannes Film Festival jury next month.
-- Steven Zeitchik
