14/07/2011

Amir Naderi's Cut will open the Horizons section at the 68th Venice Film Festival (31 August - 10 September 2011). Naderi, one of the main representatives of New Iranian cinema, who has been in exile in New York for more than 20 years, makes a return to Venice three years after his previous film, Vegas: Based on a True Story, in competition in 2008.

Cut, the script of which was written by the director, is filmed in Japan and takes place in the world of the Yakuza criminal organisation Yakuza. It will be presented in world premiere at the Venice Lido on Thursday, September 1, and will compete in the awards given to feature films (Horizons Award and Horizons Special Jury Prize), a section that's dedicated to works outside the conventional format that pays attention to new forms expression emerging in film.

Furthermore, the selection has been made for the members of Horizons' international jury, with Chinese director, producer and screenwriter Jia Zhang-Ke as its president. A real character in Chinese independent cinema, Zhang-Ke won a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2006 with Still Life.

Other members include Stuart Comer, film curator for London's Tate Modern; French architect Odile Decq; Egyptian producer and director Marianne Khoury; Italian editor and film director Jacopo Quadri (who edited Mario Martone's We Believed [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mario Martone
interview: Mario Martone
film profile]).

The jury will allocate - with no joint winners allowed - four awards: the Horizons Award and Horizons Special Jury Prize (dedicated to feature films), and the Horizons Awards for short and medium-length films.

(Translated from Italian)