US film director and screenwriter Alexander Payne will chair the jury at this year's Venice Film Festival, organizers announced on Monday.
The 64-year-old two-time Oscar winner will award the Golden Lion for Best Film at the 82nd edition of the festival in September, organizers said.
The festival in the northern Italian city runs from August 27 to September 6.
In a statement, Payne, who won Oscars for "Sideways" and "The Descendants," said it was "an enormous honor and joy to serve on the jury at Venice."
Although he said he shared "a filmmaker's ambivalence about comparing films against one another," he praised the festival's "nearly 100-year history of loudly celebrating film as an art form."
"I couldn't be more excited," Payne added.
