Filmmaker Alexander Payne is set to head the jury of the Venice Film Festival 2025.

According to the entertainment news outlet Deadline, Payne will be the jury president of the festival, which is slated to begin on August 27.

Payne said it's "an enormous honor" to head the jury.

"It’s an enormous honour and joy to serve on the jury at Venice. Although I share a filmmaker’s ambivalence about comparing films against one another, I revere the Venice Film Festival’s nearly 100-year history of loudly celebrating film as an art form. I couldn’t be more excited," he said in a statement.

Artistic director of the festival, Alberto Barbera, said Payne's qualities make him an ideal candidate.

"Alexander Payne belongs to the small circle of filmmakers-cinephiles whose passion for cinema is fueled by knowledge of films of the past and curiosity about contemporary cinema, without boundaries or barriers of any kind. These qualities, along with his experience as a screenwriter, make him an ideal candidate to preside over the work of the Venice Jury, which is called upon to evaluate films from around the world." Payne is a two-time Oscar winner. He won his first Academy Award in 2005 for "Sideways" in the Best Adapted Screenplay category. He got another Oscar in 2012 for "The Descendants" in the same category.

The Venice Film Festival 2025 will conclude on September 6. Last year, actor Isabelle Huppert was the jury president at the festival.

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