Hollywood most adored divas Nicole Kidman and Natalie Portman will now be gracing the jury seats in the 17th Shanghai international Film Festival. Along with two other actresses, Hugh Grant, Hayden Christensen and Chinese actress Gong Li will be a part of this jury this year.
The grand film festival will be inaugurated by Nicole Kidman on June 14 who will be there to promote her new film, ‘Grace of Monaco’ while Natalie Portman will be closing the festival on June 22nd. The festival will see the presentation of the Jury awards which are made in the form of golden statuettes of an ancient Chinese cup.
According to organizers, this year the jury will be led by Gong Li, former muse of the internationally renowned Chinese director Zhang Yimou. Other members in the jury panel will be British director Sally Potter, Danish director Long Scherfig, South Korean producer Im Sangsoo and Japanese scriptwriter Shunji Iwai. Chinese director Liu Jie and Iranian actor Payman Maadi are also on the jury.
The past years have seen famous names like Luc Besson, Danny Boyle, Jean Jacques Annaud, Wong Kar Wai, John Woo, Tom Hooper, Barry Levinson and Chen Kaige, and in the last decade Spaniards Fernando Trueba, Penelope Cruz y Manuel Gutierrez Aragon have been members of the jury.
"Chinese cinema is in a stage of prosperous development and our market is becoming more and more attractive to the world, which has increased the intimacy of our interactions and collaborations with world filmmakers", said Gong, who accepted the presidency as an "honour", according to the organisation's statement.
The festival this year received a record number of 1,099 films in competition.
