Lucrecia Martel announced as jury head of Venice Film Festival

Filmmaker Lucrecia Martel has been announced as the jury president of the 2019 Venice Film Festival.

The director has become the seventh woman to preside over the jury in the festival's 76-year-long history. Previously, actor Annette Bening served as the jury head at the 2017 edition of the film extravaganza.

"It's an honour, a responsibility, and a pleasure to be a part of this celebration of cinema, of humanity's immense desire to understand itself," Martel said in a statement.

Martel will head the jury that awards the festival's coveted Golden and Silver Lions. The other panel members are yet to be announced.

The decision was made by the Board of the Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, based on the recommendation of festival director Alberto Barbera.

"Four feature films and a handful of shorts, in just under two decades, have been enough to make Lucrecia Martel Latin America's most important female director, and one of the top worldwide.

"In her films, the originality of her stylistic research and her meticulous mise-en-scene are at the service of a worldview free of compromises, dedicated to exploring the mysteries of female sexuality and the dynamics of groups and classes. We are grateful to her for having enthusiastically agreed to put her exacting, yet anything but uncharitable, gaze at the service of this commitment we have requested of her," Barbera said.

Born in Salta, Argentina, the 52-year-old director made her debut with 2001 feature "La Cienaga". She followed it up with films such as "La Nina Santa", "La Mujer Sin Cabeza" and "Zama".

The Venice Film Festival runs from August 28 to September 7.