29th August – 8th September Venice Lido

The Venice Film Festival celebrates its Jubilee (1932-2007). Founded on 6th August 1932 at Venice Lido, the oldest film festival in the world celebrates its 75th anniversary this year during the 64th edition of the Festival which will be held at Venice Lido from 29th August to 8th September 2007, directed for the fourth time by Marco Muller and organised by the Biennale of Venice chaired by Davide Croff.
The 50th anniversary in 1982 saw an international Jury composed entirely of film directors (women and men), and the same formula has been adopted for the 75th anniversary of the 64th Venice Film Festival. Invited to chair it is the film-maker who, in the whole history of the Festival, has won most major awards, making, thus, a place for himself among the protagonists of world-wide cinema: the Chinese director Zhang Yimou – winner of two Golden Lions, in 1992 with The story of Qiu Ju (Qiu Ju da guan si) and in 1999 with Not One Less (Yi ge dou bu neng shao), one Silver Lion in 1991 with Raise the Red Lantern (Da hong deng long gao gao gua) and one Coppa Volpi for the best female actress (Gong Li, in 1992, for The Story of Qiu Ju).
Two great figures from American cinema, producer Bill Mechanic and director Gregg Araki, have been selected as presidents of other two international juries of the 64th Venice Film Festival, respectively for the Luigi De Laurentiis Prize for a First Film, and for the Orizzonti section dedicated to the new film-making trends. Mechanic and Araki are two of the most representative figures of the new American film scene, where independent spirit and creative originality contribute to give a renewed impulse to the production system.
Like the two preceding editions, the Jubilee Festival will have a lean structure to assure maximum visibility to the films and film-makers: the number of feature films in the Official Selection will be kept to a total of less than sixty titles. The maximum numbers for each section will be: 20 films for the Competition, 8 films for the Out of Competition Section, 5 films for the Out of Competition/Midnight Section, 18 films for Orizzonti.
This year again there will be some Special Events too. Among these, the special ‘’Tim Burton Day’’ on Wednesday 5th September on the occasion of the awarding of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to the American film director in the Sala Grande within the Palazzo of the Cinema.