Damien Chazelle to serve as jury president of Venice Film Festival

Oscar-winning director Damien Chazelle has signed up to serve as the jury president at the 2023 Venice Film Festival.

The La La Land filmmaker will preside over the competition jury, which picks the winner of the Golden Lion for Best Film, among other prizes.

"For 10 days each year this city of the arts, of Tintoretto and Titian and Veronese, becomes a city of cinema, and I am humbled and delighted to be invited to lead this year's jury. I can't wait to discover a new crop of great films at the 80th Venice Film Festival," he said in a statement.

The Babylon director is a regular at the Italian film festival and has had the honour of opening the event twice, with La La Land premiering in competition in 2016 and First Man in 2018.

The line-up of films selected to compete in this year's festival has yet to be announced, while Chazelle's fellow jurors haven't been disclosed either.

French director Alice Diop will head up the jury of the festival's Luigi De Laurentiis Award for best debut film, a prize she won last year for her first fictional feature Saint Omer.

"What a great honour, what a great joy, to have been chosen to preside over the Luigi De Laurentiis Venice Award for a Debut Film, at a festival that welcomed me and offered me so much last year," said Diop. "I am happy to pass on the baton this year and to work to see a new voice emerge in the cinematic landscape that the Venice Festival has always had at sought to renew."

In addition, Italian director Jonas Carpignano will serve as the president of the festival's Horizons strand.

The 80th edition of the Venice Film Festival will run from 30 August to 9 September.