Kenneth Lonergan, Bérénice Bejo, Annemarie Jacir Join Berlin Jury
By Leo Barraclough
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – American playwright and filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan, French actor and “The Artist” star Bérénice Bejo, and Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir will serve on the International Jury of the Berlin Film Festival.
The other jury members are German producer Bettina Brokemper, Italian actor Luca Marinelli, and programmer, film critic and director Kleber Mendonça Filho from Brazil. As previously reported actor Jeremy Irons will head the jury.
Lonergan wrote and directed “Manchester by the Sea,” for which he won the Oscar for original screenplay. He earned Oscar nominations for co-writing “Gangs of New York” and “You Can Count on Me” in the same category.
Bejo was Oscar nominated for “The Artist” and won best actress at Cannes for “The Past.”
Jacir’s debut feature “Salt of This Sea” was in the official program of the Cannes Film Festival. Her second feature film, “When I Saw You,” premiered in the Berlinale’s Forum section, and “Wajib” was in Locarno’s competition lineup.
Brokemper is co-founder of Heimatfilm, whose productions include Semih Kaplanoğlu’s Berlinale winner “Honey,” Margarethe von Trotta’s “Hannah Arendt,” Nicolette Krebitz’s “Wild,” and Jan Bonny’s “A Winter’s Tale.”
Marinelli played a leading screen role for the first time in Saverio Costanzo’s “The Solitude of Prime Numbers,” which premiered at the Venice Film Festival. His other standout roles were in films such as “They Call Me Jeeg” by Gabriele Mainetti, for which he received the David di Donatello Award for supporting actor, and “A Private Affair,” directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani. Most recently, he played in Pietro Marcello’s “Martin Eden,” for which he won best actor at Venice.
Mendonça Filho’s first fiction feature film was “Neighbouring Sounds,” which premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival. “Aquarius,” starring Sonia Braga, played in competition in Cannes. “Bacurau,” Mendonça Filho’s most recent work, co-directed and co-written with Juliano Dornelles, screened in competition in Cannes and won the jury prize.
