Italian director Alice Rohrwacher, who won the 2014 Cannes Grand Prix with her sophomore film The Wonders, will head the Venice Film Festival’s jury for best first film.
Also called the Luigi de Laurentiis Award, Venice’s distinction for debut films comes with a $100,000 cash prize to be equally divided between the director and the producer.
Rohrwacher’s The Wonders centers on a German-Italian family, like Rohrwacher’s own, though the filmmaker is the first to declare her work isn’t autobiographical. It follows the coming-of-age of the oldest daughter in a rural family, headed by a domineering beekeeper father, amidst a profound transformation of the countryside where she grew up. It stars the director’s sister Alba Rohrwacher, Andre Hennicke, and Monica Bellucci.
[via Variety]
