Serra Y?lmaz
The members of the international jury that will assign the “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film at the 68th Venice International Film Festival have been selected. As announced earlier, the Jury will be chaired by Italian filmmaker Carlo Mazzacurati, who featured in the 67th Venice International Film Festival with La passione (in Competition) and the documentary Sei Venezia.
The 68th Venice International Film Festival takes place on the Lido (August 31 –September 10, 2011) and is directed by Marco Mueller and organized by la Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta.
Alongside Carlo Mazzacurati, the members of the “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film Jury will be:
- Russian director and screenwriter Aleksei Fedorchenko, who won extraordinary acclaim from the critics and the audience in the Competition at the 2010 Venice International Film Festival for his poetic Ovsyanki (Silent Souls, winner of the Osella and Fipresci prizes). He was also the revelation of the 2005 Venice Film Festival with his irreverent “mockumentary” Pervye na lune (First on the Moon), winner of the Orizzonti Prize for best documentary, about the legendary Moon landing by the Soviets (before Armstrong). In 2005 he founded his own production company, “February 29th”, with which he produced the feature-length film Železnaya doroga (The Railway, 2006) and the documentaries Shosho (2007) and Veter Šuvgej (Wind of Change, 2008), in which he began his personal and unusual research into the diverse ethnic groups of the former Soviet Union, which continued in Ovsyanki, inspired by the novel by Denis Osokin. He is currently making a new film, also inspired by a book written by Osokin.
- American producer Fred Roos, who collaborated on several of the legendary early films of the New Hollywood (The Godfather, American Graffiti, and Star Wars, to name a few) and has produced Francis Ford Coppola’s works from the director’s early days through the recent Tetro (2009). During his long career he has produced many other films including Wim Wenders’ Hammett (1982), Jack Nicholson’s Drive, He Said (1971), Barbet Schroeder’s Barfly (1987), Carroll Ballard’s The Black Stallion (1979), Peter Chelsom’s Town and Country (2001), Agnieszka Holland’s The Secret Garden (1993), and the documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (directed by Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper, Eleanor Coppola, 1991) winner of the Cable Ace Award for Best Documentary. In the late ‘90s Roos began another fruitful collaboration, this time with Sofia Coppola, producing her debut film The Virgin Suicides (1999) and serving as Executive Producer on all her subsequent works — Lost in Translation (2003), Marie-Antoinette (2006), and Somewhere (2010), winner of the Golden Lion (Best Picture) at the Venice International Film Festival last year.
- French film critic and historian Charles Tesson, a major contributor to the prestigious “Cahiers du cinéma” since 1979, of which he was editor in chief from 1998 to 2003. He produced the works of important directors such as Philippe Garrel and Jean-Pierre Limosin and has been an independent distributor for many other works. Professor of history and aesthetics of cinema at the Sorbonne in Paris, he wrote several books and essays on cinema, including Satyajit Ray (1992), Luis Bunuel (1995), El from Luis Bunuel (1996), Photogénie de la Série B (1997), Théâtre et cinéma (2007) and Akira Kurosawa (2008). He directed several special issues of the “Cahiers”, among them « Made in Hong Kong » (1984) with Olivier Assayas, and « Made in China » (1999). Tesson co-directed the book L’Asie à Hollywood (2001). He is a member of the selection committee for the “Semaine de la Critique” (Cannes Film Festival), where he has been appointed the new artistic director.
- Turkish actress Serra Yilmaz. Since appearing in Ferzan Ozpetek’s Harem Suaré (1988) she has become a very well known iconic actress of Ozpetek’s, also starring in his Le fate ignoranti (2001), La finestra di fronte (2004, one nomination at the David di Donatello Awards and a Flaiano Award), Saturno contro (2007), and Un giorno perfetto (2008). Since the ’80s she has acted for the masters of the Turkish cinema (for example, Ömer Kavur’s Hotel Madre-Patria, in Competition at Venice in 1987) and has become an important performer for theatre. In 2004 she left the Istanbul Municipal Theatre Company and started acting at the Rifredi Theatre in Florence in the play L’Ultimo Harem – the Last Harem, directed by Angelo Savelli, which has been staged for seven seasons and will be on the bill until 2012. In 2010 Y?lmaz also performed in different roles in Sedef Ecer’s Sur le Seuil at the Centre Culturel Jean Houdrement à La Courneuvue and in Fécamp. Besides taking on major roles in many successful TV series, Serra Y?lmaz also works as an interpreter and a translator (Pirandello, Yourcenar, Jaccotet). A book entitled Una donna turchese (i.e., “a turquoise woman”) has been written about her life by Andreina Swich.
The decision was made by la Biennale di Venezia’s board of Directors, chaired by Paolo Baratta, accepting the proposal made by the Director of the Venice International Film Festival, Marco Mueller.
The international Jury of the “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film will select – no shared awards permitted – among all the debut feature-length films in the various competitive sections of the Venice Film Festival (Official Selection and Independent Parallel Sections), the winner of the Lion of the Future – “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film, along with the 100,000 USD offered by Aurelio and Luigi De Laurentiis’ Filmauro, to be divided equally between the director and the producer.
In recent years this award has been presented to: Le grand voyage by Ismael Ferroukhi (2004), 13 – Tzameti by Gela Babluani (2005), Khadak by Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth (2006), La zona by Rodrigo Plá (2007), Mid-August Lunch (Pranzo di ferragosto) by Gianni Di Gregorio (2008) Clash (Engkwentro) by Pepe Diokno (2009), and Majority (Cogunluk) by Seren Yuce (2010).
Biographical notes
Aleksei Fedorchenko (director and screenwriter, Russia)
Aleksei Fedorchenko (Russia, director and screenwriter) was born in 1966 near Orenburg. After graduating in Economics at the Polytechnic University of the Urals in 1988 he enrolled at the VGIK (The All-Russian State University of Cinematography). Starting in the early ‘90s, he worked as an assistant and then as a director of production at the documentary film studios in Ekaterinburg (formerly Sverdlovsk). In 2000 he graduated in dramaturgy from the VGIK. He made his debut as a director in 2002 with the poignant documentary-interview David, which was screened and won awards at many festivals, including the Anthropological Film Festival in Salekhard (second prize), the Stockholm Film Festival (Grand Prix), the Lubljana Festival (Grand Prix), the Warsaw Festival (second prize). He then wrote the screenplay for the short film Okhota na zaytsev (Hare Hunting, 2003), directed by Igor Voloshin, which won the Grand Prize at the Mexico International Film Festival in 2004. He made his feature-length film debut with the docu-fiction Pervye na lune (First on the Moon, 2005), a fantasy epic on the Soviet Moon landing in the Thirties, presented at the 62nd Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Orizzonti Prize for Best Documentary; the film later won awards at the Festival in Sochi and at Cottbus. In 2005 he founded his own production company, “February 29th”, with which he produced the feature-length film Železnaya doroga (The Railway, 2006) and the documentaries Shosho (2007) and Veter Šuvgej (Wind of Change, 2008), in which he began his personal and unusual research into the diverse ethnic groups of the former Soviet Union, which continued in Ovsyanki, inspired by the novel by Denis Osokin. He is currently making a new film, also inspired by a book written by Osokin.
Fred Roos (producer, US)
Fred Roos has worked with some of Hollywood’s most gifted filmmakers and actors over the last four decades, producing some of the most unique films of our time. Roos’ long-term collaboration with Francis Ford Coppola includes producing the Academy Award-winning Best Picture The Godfather, Part II (1974) and the Academy Award-nominated Best Pictures The Godfather, Part III (1990), and The Conversation (winner of the Palm D’Or at Cannes). Other films Roos has produced with Coppola include: One From the Heart (1982), The Outsiders (1983), Rumble Fish (1983), The Cotton Club (1984), Gardens of Stone (1987), New York Stories, Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), Youth Without Youth (2007), (as Executive Producer), and the recent release Tetro (2009).
Among Roos’ other producing credits are: Wim Wenders’ Hammett (1982), Jack Nicholson’s Drive, He Said (1971), Barbet Schroeder’s Barfly (1987), Peter Chelsom’s Town and Country (2001), Agnieszka Holland’s The Secret Garden (1993), and the documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper, Eleanor Coppola, 1991) winner of Cable Ace Award, Best Documentary. He also produced The Black Stallion (Carroll Ballard, 1979) and the Walt Disney release in Imax, The Young Black Stallion (Simon Wincer, 2003). Roos co-produced Sofia Coppola’s debut film The Virgin Suicides (1999) and served as Executive Producer on Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation (2003), Marie-Antoinette (2006) and Somewhere (2010), winner of the Golden Lion (Best Picture) at the 2010Venice International Film Festival.
Before he began producing films, Roos had a legendary career as a casting director on such films as: The Godfather, American Graffiti (George Lucas, 1973), Five Easy Pieces (Bob Rafelson, 1970), The King of Marvin Gardens (Bob Rafelson, 1972), Fat City (John Huston, 1972), Petulia (Richard Lester, 1968), and Zabriskie Point (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1970). He also served as casting consultant on Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977).
Charles Tesson (film critic and historian, France)
Charles Tesson is the new Artistic Director of the Critic’s Week at Cannes Film Festival. He is also a film critic on Cahiers du cinéma where he began in 1979, and former editor of the magazine (1998-2003). He is also professor in cinema, history and aesthetics, at la Sorbonne Nouvelle (University of Paris III). He has written several books and essays on cinema, including Satyajit Ray (1992), Luis Bunuel (1995), El from Luis Bunuel (1996), Photogénie de la Série B (1997), Théâtre et cinéma (2007) and Akira Kurosawa (2008). He edited certain special issues for Cahiers du cinema, such as « Made in Hong Kong » (1984) with Olivier Assayas, « Made in China » (1999) and co-directed the book L’Asie à Hollywood (2001).
Serra Y?lmaz (actress, Turkey)
Serra Y?lmaz was born in Istanbul in 1954. After completing her high school education, she earned a degree in Psychology at the University of Caen in France, where she participated in the theatre classes given by Robert Abirached. Following her return to Istanbul, she continued her acting studies and was selected to be in the “Dostlar Theatre” company, where she started to take on minor roles in theatre plays.
She began her film career in 1983 with Sekerpare by Atif Yilmaz, and then she started working with some of the greatest authors of the Turkish cinema of the ‘80s, acting in movies like Anayurt Oteli by Ömer Kavur, presented in competition at the Venice International Film Festival in 1987. In 1988 she worked as an actress and dramaturge in the Istanbul Municipal Theatre Company, in which, from 1996 to 2000, she was the Assistant Art Director and was in charge of international relations. In 1998 her performance in Harem Suare directed by Ferzan Ozpetek, won the Award for Best Supporting Actress at the Antalya Film Festival and marked the beginning of a long collaboration with Ozpetek, who also directed her in Le Fate Ignoranti (2001). In the following year she was directed by Elisabeth Raygaard in The House of Hearts (Omfavn mig måne). With her role in Ümit Ünal’s Dokuz (2002), Y?lmaz won two awards for Best Actress at the Istanbul Festival and at the Sadri Al???k Theater and Cinema Awards.
In 2004, she left the Istanbul Municipal Theatre Company and carried on her fruitful collaboration with Ferzan Ozpetek, acting in La Finestra di Fronte, a role which earned her a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the prestigious David di Donatello Awards. For that very role, she was also honored with the Ennio Flaiano prize and the Ciak d’oro award for Best Supporting Actress, while Y?lmaz received the La Cle D’or Achievement Award at the Mirto D’Oro awards ceremony. In 2005, directed by Angelo Savelli, she appeared in the play L’Ultimo Harem – the Last Harem, which has been staged at the Rifredi Theatre in Florence for seven seasons and will be on the bill until 2012.
In 2010 Y?lmaz also performed in different roles in Sedef Ecer’s Sur le Seuil at the Centre Culturel Jean Houdrement à La Courneuvue and in Fécamp. Besides taking major roles in many successful TV series, Serra Y?lmaz also works as an interpreter and a translator (Pirandello, Yourcenar, Jaccotet).
