Tarantino to lead Venice film fest jury

Venice Film Festival officials have tapped Quentin Tarantino as head of its main competition jury this year, citing the American filmmaker's "rock star" status worldwide.

The Pulp Fiction and Inglorious Basterds director will chair the international jury that will decide the winner of the venerable festival's highly coveted top prize, the Golden Lion.

"Tarantino has been one of the most startling directors in cinema today. As a filmmaker, he has become a studied and imitated 'point of reference,' and he is perhaps the only American auteur to be adored worldwide like a rock star," the festival said in a statement Thursday.

Organizers praised the director, writer and actor's efforts in helping relaunch the careers of performers by featuring them in his films including John Travolta (Pulp Fiction), Pam Grier (Jackie Brown) and David Carradine (Kill Bill) as well as for boosting others to new heights, as he did for Austrian actor Christoph Waltz (winner of countless acting awards for his turn in Inglorious Basterds).

Calling Tarantino a "connoisseur of Italian genre cinema," Venice officials also recognized his role as "godfather" of two festival-related events: the Italian Kings of the B's retrospective and the Spaghetti Westerns retrospective.

Tarantino served as president of the Cannes Film Festival in 2004, when Michael Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 was the controversial winner of that event'sprestigiousPalme d'Or prize.

The 67th Venice International Film Festival takes place Sept. 1-11. Films expected to debut in Venice this year include Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, Julian Schnabel's Miral and Francois Ozon's Potiche.