Annette Bening deserves the world — she is a queen of the highest degree — but her most recent accolade will do: She has been named the president of the Venice Film Festival jury, according to Deadline. She is the first woman to take the role in 11 years. (The last lady at the helm of the jury was Catherine Deneuve in 2006.)
"It was time to break with a long list of male presidents and invite a brilliant talented and inspiring woman to chair our International competition jury," festival director Alberto Barbera said in a statement. From our perspective, the tradition could have been broken a while ago (like, say, 2007), but Bening is a good salve for our 11-year wounds.
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Bening responded that she is "honored to be asked to serve as the President of the jury for this year’s Venice Film Festival." She continued, "I look forward to seeing the movies and working with my fellow jury members to celebrate the best of this year’s cinema from all over the world."
Now that the president's been announced, it's likely that the festival will reveal its 2017 lineup fairly soon. Last year, the fest published their lineup in late July. Among the 2016 titles were Tom Ford's Nocturnal Animals, Arrival, and the awards season darling La La Land. That is to say, the Venice Film Festival is a bit of an awards predictor, as these fests tend to be.
But back to Annette Bening: She's awesome. She appears in the most iconic films from the last two decades — American Beauty, anyone? — and she has an entire Wikipedia page devoted to her many awards and nominations. It was about time she was president of the Venice Film Festival jury, no?
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