The president of the International Jury for the Competition of the 65th Venice Film Festival (27th of August to 6th September 2008), will be one of the greatest filmmakers of his generation, the German director Wim Wenders, who has formed close ties with the Festival over the years.

Indeed, Wenders appeared at the Lido already in 1972 with his first feature, The Goalkeeper’s Fear of the Penalty Kick (Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter), and won the Golden Lion 10 years later with The State of Things (Der Stand der Dinge), the first in a series of important awards that have led him to the forefront of international cinema.

The director’s output has coincided frequently with the Venice Film Festival during recent decades. In 1989, he presented Lightning over Water in the Mezzogiorno-Mezzanotte section; in 1985, he presented Docu Drama at the International Critics’ Week; in 1994, his Arisha, the Bear and the Stone Ring (Arisha, der Bär und der steinerne Ring) appeared in the Finestra sulle Immagini section; in 1995, Beyond the Clouds, co-directed with Michelangelo Antonioni, was presented out of competition and won the Fipresci award; in 1996, a work for television was presented in the Finestra sulle Immagini section entitled The Skladanowsky Brothers (Die Gebrüder Skladanowsky); and in 2004, the director returned to the competition with Land of Plenty.