“Dangerous Liaisons” scribe to lead Odessa Film Fest Jury

PanARMENIAN.Net - Oscar- and BAFTA-winning U.S. screenwriter Christopher Hampton will be the first Hollywood representative to head up the jury at the upcoming Odessa International Film Festival (OIFF), Ukraine's main international film event, The Hollywood Reporter said.

In addition to Hampton, who won an Oscar and a BAFTA award for Stephen Frears’ 1988 movie Dangerous Liaisons and later penned Joe Wright's Atonement and David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method, the international jury will include Ukrainian screenwriter and director Eva Neymann, British producer Rebecca O'Brien, U.S. actor Alex Ross Perry (Tiny Furniture) and Italian producer and director Uberto Pasolini.

OIFF's main competition program will consist of 12 films this year, including the Ukraine/Italy co-production The Nest of the Turtledove, directed by Taras Tkachenko, and Suntan by Greek filmmaker Argyris Papadimitropoulos.

The OIFF's seventh edition is set to run July 15-23 in the Black Sea port and resort city of Odessa.

In addition to the main competition section, the event will feature the European documentary competition, national competitions for features and shorts, a special Ukrainian retrospective and two sections, Festival of Festivals and Gala Premieres, devoted to the most recent international festival hits. Three movies from this year's official selection of the Cannes Film Festival — Pedro Almodovar's Julieta, Nicolas Winding Refn's The Neon Demon and Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann — will be screened in the latter section.