Alexander Payne announced as president of Venice Film Festival jury

Apr 28, 2025

American director Alexander Payne (The Holdovers, Sideways, Nebraska, The Descendants,) will be the president of the International Jury of the Competition at the 82^nd Venice International Film Festival (August 27 – September 6, 2025), which will assign the Golden Lion for Best Film, as well as other official awards.

The decision was made by the Board of Directors of La Biennale di Venezia, who confirmed the recommendation of the Director of the Venice Film Festival, Alberto Barbera.

In accepting the proposal, Alexander Payne said: “It’s an enormous honor and joy to serve on the jury at Venice. Although I share a filmmaker’s ambivalence about comparing films against one another, I revere the Venice Film Festival’s nearly 100-year history of loudly celebrating film as an art form. I couldn’t be more excited.”

Alberto Barbera commented: “Alexander Payne belongs to the small circle of filmmakers-cinephiles whose passion for cinema is fueled by knowledge of films of the past and curiosity about contemporary cinema, without boundaries or barriers of any kind. These qualities – along with his experience as a screenwriter – make him an ideal candidate to preside over the work of the Venice Jury, which is called upon to evaluate films from around the world. I am grateful to Alexander for accepting my invitation, which seals an acquaintance that goes back to the days of his graduation short film at UCLA.”

Prizes to be awarded

On the final night (September 6, 2025) of the upcoming 82^nd Venice Film Festival, the International Jury of Venezia 82, chaired by Alexander Payne and composed of no more then nine international celebrities in the spheres of film and culture from different countries, will assign the following official prizes among the feature-length films in the Competition: