French film icon Isabelle Huppert, president of the main competition jury at the 81st Venice Film Festival, took the stage Wednesday afternoon to share her thoughts on how she will approach her role as the event’s de facto chief artistic judge. The meeting was marked by a triumphant tone from Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera, who sat alongside Huppert and noted that his glamorous Italian festival will feature more big-name stars on its red carpet in the coming week than in any year in recent memory. But there was also a palpable undercurrent of angst over the myriad technology-driven business challenges that continue to upend the global independent film industry.
“I'm worried about the things that everyone worries about, whether cinema can continue to survive, because it is very weak now,” Huppert noted at the start of the session. “It is very difficult to make a film. A film is not just an individual effort. It is really something that we deliver to the world. So I am worried whether our world will still be able to connect with people. That is why the Venice Film Festival is necessary. And that is why I am so happy to be here.”
American director Debra Granik (Winter Bone), who chairs the jury of the Orizzonti section of Venice this year, thanked Huppert for addressing “the elephant in the room.”
“That’s why we all showed up here, because we want to see this art form survive,” Granik said. The director emphasized the value of film festivals like Venice in encouraging artists to “keep telling the stories that aren’t covered by the mainstream.”
“Festivals are now perhaps acts of defiance, of going against the grain,” Granik added, addressing Barbera. “This festival has 80 years of solidity and mobility. It doesn't age or become stale.”
Huppert also stressed how “honored and excited” she felt to oversee this year’s competition jury, noting her many “wonderful memories” of Venice throughout her storied filmmaking career.
“By definition, juries are subjective,” he added. “That's what juries do; that's why they're so beautiful. Subjectivity means we've made choices, and choosing also means giving up. All the films will be looked at carefully from this angle, and that's an award in itself for these filmmakers.”
Alongside Huppert, the jury includes American director and screenwriter James Gray (Ad Astra), British director and screenwriter Andrew Haigh, Polish director, screenwriter and producer Agnieszka Holland, Brazilian director and screenwriter Kleber Mendonça Filho, Mauritanian director, screenwriter and producer Abderrahmane Sissako, Italian director and screenwriter Giuseppe Tornatore, German director and screenwriter Julia von Heinz and Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi.
The 81st Venice Film Festival opens Wednesday night with the out-of-competition world premiere of Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice and will conclude on September 7, when the prestigious Golden Lion for Best Film and other awards will be unveiled during the festival’s closing ceremony.