Quentin Tarantino President of the International Jury for the Venezia 67 Competition
The American director and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino, one of the major creative figures in contemporary cinema, will chair the International Jury for the main competition of the 67th Venice International Film Festival (September 1-11, 2010), which will award the Golden Lion and other official prizes.
This decision has been made by La Biennale di Venezia‘s Board of directors, presided over by Paolo Baratta, accepting the proposal made by the Director of the Venice Film Festival, Marco Mueller.
Quentin Tarantino has recently won again worldwide critical and public acclaim for his Inglorious Basterds (2009), which received eight Oscar nominations for the 2010 awards (Christoph Waltz winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Hans Landa).
Ever since his brilliant debut with Reservoir Dogs (1992), followed by his manifesto-film Pulp Fiction (1994) – Palme d’Or at Cannes and Oscar for Best Screenplay – Tarantino has been one of the most startling directors in cinema today. As a filmmaker, he has become a studied and imitated “point of reference”, and he is perhaps the only American auteur to be adored worldwide like a rock star. His highly original style draws dynamically from past movies, comics and popular Asia cinema, but does so to revive a taste for narrative plots, skilfully blending genre cinema and “pulp fiction”.
He has also been an atypical character actor (his part in Sukiyaki Western Django by Miike Takashi in competition at the 2008 Venice Film Festival was particularly memorable).
In the films he has directed, Tarantino has re-launched overlooked actors in impressive roles, including John Travolta (Pulp Fiction), Pam Grier (Jackie Brown) and David Carradine (Kill Bill), and created new stars, such as Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds.
Tarantino is a great admirer and connoisseur of Italian genre cinema (which he often quotes in his own films: the starting point for his project Inglorious Basterds was Quel maledetto treno blindato [aka The Inglorious Bastards in the USA], 1978, by Enzo G. Castellari), and at the Venice Film Festival he has been the ‘godfather’ of the Italian Kings of the B’s retrospective (the first part of the Secret history of Italian cinema project) in 2004, and of the Spaghetti Westerns retrospective in 2007.
Venice, May 6th, 2010
Quentin Tarantino / Biography
With his vibrant imagination and his trademark dedication to richly detailed storytelling, Quentin Tarantino has established himself as one of the most celebrated filmmakers of his generation. Tarantino continues to infuse his distinct, innovative films with appreciative nods to classic moviemaking styles, genres and motifs.
Tarantino’s 2009 critically acclaimed and worldwide box-office hit Inglourious Basterds starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Diane Kruger, Melanie Laurnet, Eli Roth and BJ Novak received 8 Academy Award nominations including Best Director & Screenplay nods for Tarantino and a Best Supporting Actor win (Waltz), Golden Globes nominations for Best Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay and a win for Best Supporting Actor (Waltz), won both the SAG Best Ensemble and Best Supporting Actor (Waltz) Awards as well as 6 BAFTA nominations including Best Director & Screenplay and a Best Supporting Actor win (Waltz). Tarantino also received a DGA nomination for Best Director.
In 2007, Tarantino collaborated with Robert Rodriquez on Grindhouse, an unprecedented project from the long-time collaborators (From Dusk To Dawn, Four Rooms and Sin City) which presented two original, complete films as a double feature. Tarantino’s Death Proof, one half of the double feature, is a white-knuckle ride behind the wheel of a psycho serial killer’s roving death machine.
Tarantino guided audiences on a whirlwind tour of the globe in Kill Bill vol. 1 and Kill Bill vol. 2, in which Uma Thurman, as “the bride,” enacted a “roaring rampage of revenge” on her former lover and boss. Kill Bill vol. 1 and Kill Bill vol. 2 also star David Carradine as the doomed title character, and Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah, Vivica A. Fox and Michael Madsen as his equally moribund team of assassins.
Following the worldwide success of Kill Bill vol. 1 and Kill Bill vol. 2, Tarantino seized another opportunity to collaborate with longtime friend and colleague Robert Rodriguez as a special guest director on the thriller Sin City. Based on three of co-director Frank Miller’s graphic novels, Sin City was released in 2005. The ensemble cast included Jessica Alba, Powers Boothe, Rosario Dawson, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Clarke Duncan, Michael Madsen, Brittany Murphy, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis and Elijah Wood.
Tarantino then turned his attention to the small screen, directing the season five finale of CSI. In the episode, entitled “Grave Danger,” Tarantino took the show’s fans on a chilling, claustrophobic journey six feet underground into a torturous coffin that contained CSI team member Nick Stokes (George Eads). The episode garnered Tarantino an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series. Tarantino made his television directorial debut in 1995 with an episode of the long-running drama ER entitled “Motherhood.”
Tarantino wrote and directed Jackie Brown, a comic crime caper loosely based on Elmore Leonard’s novel “Rum Punch”, starring Pam Grier, Robert Forster, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert De Niro, Bridget Fonda and Michael Keaton. Jackie Brown was released in 1997. Grier garnered both Golden Globe and SAG Award nominations for her performance in the title role. Forster was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Supporting Actor. Jackson won the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1998 for his performance as Ordell Robbie.
Tarantino co-wrote, directed and starred in Pulp Fiction, which won the Palme D’Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival, numerous critics’ awards, and a Golden Globe for Best Screenplay. Tarantino made a return visit to Cannes in 2004 to take on the prestigious role of jury president. Pulp Fiction was nominated for seven Academy Awards® including Best Picture and Best Director, and Tarantino received an Academy Award® for Best Screenplay. The time-bending, crime fiction collage stars John Travolta, Bruce Willis, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, Eric Stoltz, Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Maria de Medeiros, Amanda Plummer and Christopher Walken.
He made a bold debut with Reservoir Dogs, a cops and robbers tale that Tarantino wrote, directed and produced on a shoe-string budget. The film boasts an impressive cast that includes Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi, Tim Roth and Michael Madsen.
Following the success of Reservoir Dogs, the screenplays that Tarantino wrote during his tenure as a video store clerk became hot properties: Tony Scott directed Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette in True Romance and Robert Rodriguez directed George Clooney and Salma Hayek in From Dusk Till Dawn.
Tarantino joined Allison Anders, Robert Rodriguez and Alexandre Rockwell by directing, writing and executive producing a segment of the omnibus feature Four Rooms.
Tarantino’s diverse work as a producer exemplifies both his dedication to first-time filmmakers and his enthusiastic support for his experienced peers and colleagues. Tarantino served as an executive producer on Eli Roth’s Hostel, a chilling horror film about vacationers who fall victim to a service that allows its patrons to live out sadistic fantasies of murder. In 2005, Tarantino also produced first-time director Katrina Bronson’s Daltry Calhoun, starring Johnny Knoxville and Juliette Lewis. Tarantino’s additional executive producer credits include Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn and Roger Avary’s Killing Zoe. The longtime fan of Asian cinema presented Yuen Wo Ping’s Iron Monkey to American audiences in 2001 and Zhang Yimou’s Hero in 2004.
