It’s a homecoming of sorts for the director of Portrait of a Lady on Fire (awarded Best Screenplay at Cannes), ever since she was shortlisted for the 2014 LUX Prize at 27 Times Cinema, the initiative organized by Giornate degli Autori, the European Parliament’s LUX Audience Award and Europa Cinemas, in collaboration with Cineuropa. In fact, Sciamma will be presiding over the special jury made up of 27 young European cinephiles on ‘campus’ at Giornate to assign the GdA Director’s Award, and coordinated by the Director of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Karel Och. This is the only official award for Giornate degli Autori, the independent sidebar of the Venice Film Festival that is promoted by the Italian filmmakers’ associations.
For the second year in a row, a woman has been tapped as the GdA jury president, after the original duo consisting of Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova, who awarded last year’s winner, the Romanian film Imaculat by Monica Stan and George Chiper-Lillemark, which went on to win the Luigi De Laurentiis Venice Award for Best Debut Film on the entire Venice Film Festival lineup. Céline Sciamma will be charged with guiding her young team in selecting the title from the Giornate Official Selection that best reflects the meaning of the award: the courage to see the world through new eyes.
“I feel grateful that I get to share my thoughts about contemporary films with such a young group,” observed Céline Sciamma, “and at such a political moment for independent cinema. I feel close in spirit to Giornate degli Autori and I am excited about experiencing it fully as a member of the team this edition. I can’t wait for the impact.”
“Our choice of Céline Sciamma as jury president,” declares Artistic Director Gaia Furrer, “doesn’t only mean having one of the most intriguing voices in contemporary film with us at Giornate degli Autori; most importantly, what it means is embracing her vision of reality. Céline Sciamma has always been interested in questions of identity, and her films have turned the established order of things in cinema on its head. She has thoroughly upended the basic structure of our society and masterfully created new images and new memories. With her latest film, Petite Maman, she has provided further proof that the prevailing canon of film production can indeed be challenged. I am absolutely certain that working side by side with an artist of this stature will be an extraordinary experience for the young jurors at Giornate degli Autori this year.”
“It isn’t just the films she has directed, all to widespread acclaim,” adds Giornate Delegate Giorgio Gosetti, “that make Céline Sciamma a true artist. Equally essential, in my view, is her output as a screenwriter. She has brought her unique talent to bear on a range of artistic genres, from animated cartoons to TV series, teaming up with filmmakers from different generations, such as André Techiné or Jacques Audiard”.
