Quentin Tarantino to lead Venice film festival jury

Quentin Tarantino has been chosen to lead the competition jury at the Venice film festival in September. The director, who served as head of the Cannes film festival jury in 2004, was described by the Venetian event's boss Marco Müller as "one of the most startling directors in cinema today". Though Tarantino has never shown any of his films at Venice, he has organised two retrospectives there: one of Italian B-movies in 2004 and another of spaghetti westerns three years later. Tarantino's jury will award this year's Golden Lion for best film: possible contenders include Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, a drama about an actor living at Hollywood's Chateau Marmont hotel, Monte Hellman's noir Road to Nowhere, Julian Schnabel's Miral, starring Freida Pinto as a refugee camp teacher in postwar Jerusalem, and François Ozon's Potiche, which stars Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu. "Tarantino is perhaps the only American auteur to be adored worldwide like a rock star," said Müller. The director's most recent work, Inglourious Basterds, took eight Oscar nominations and won the best supporting actor award for Christoph Waltz. The 67th edition of the Venice film festival will run 1-11 September.