Saudi Arabian Director Haifaa Al-Mansour to Head Venice Jury For Debut Films

ROME – Haifaa Al-Mansour, the first female film director of international note to emerge from Saudi Arabia, will head the jury that will award the Luigi De Laurentiis prize, given to the best debut film at the Venice Film Festival.

Al-Mansour’s own debut film Wadjda -- which tells the tale of a young girl efforts to earn money to buy a green bicycle she has her eye on -- won three secondary prizes in Venice last year before going on to earn accolades elsewhere on the international film festival circuit.

The Luigi De Laurentiis jury, made up of seven industry figures, will award a prize to a debut film screening in the festival’s main international competition or one of the competitive sidebars. In addition to the recognition from the award, the prize includes a $100,000 cash prize, spit between the director and the producer. Rules do not permit split awards.

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The prize is named for famed Italian film producer Luigi De Laurentiis, who died in 1992.

Küf (Mold), a drama from director Ali Aydin about the struggles of a widow soon-to-be pensioner that screened in Venice’s Critic’s Week sidebar, won the Luigi De Laurentiis honor a year ago.

The 70th edition of the Venice event -- the world's oldest film festival -- takes place Aug. 28-Sept. 7.

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Alfred Hitchcock's Silent Films Added to UNESCO Register

LONDON – Alfred Hitchcock’s nine surviving silent films have been added to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's U.K. Memory of the World Register.

The register is part of a UNESCO program to support and raise awareness of archives. Hitchcock's films are among 11 items selected from the U.K.’s libraries, archives and museums to represent British heritage.

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Among the nine titles are the filmmaker's first feature The Pleasure Garden and boxing drama The Ring.

Hitchcock’s earliest films have unspooled at events from Shanghai to Rio de Janeiro, from Cannes to London after premiering as fresh BFI National Archive restorations during the London film festival last year.

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All nine films are scheduled to screen again at BFI Southbank in August and then Europe before traveling to the U.S. where they will be shown in major cities including Washington, San Francisco and Los Angeles as part of a national tour.

The UNESCO U.K. Memory of the World Register will now feature Hitchcock's silent films, included alongside the Domesday Book, and other items spanning nearly 900 years.

It marks the third group of inscriptions to the UNESCO register, an online catalog created in 2010 to help promote the U.K.’s documentary heritage across the Britain and the world.

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