It has been announced that the Oscar winning director of Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky will be heading this year’s jury at the Venice Film Festival. This should hardly come as a surprise as Aronofsky won the Golden Lion for The Wrestler and has premiered several of his films at the festival. In a statement, the organisers quite rightly described the director as a ‘key figure in contemporary cinema’ whose work ‘engaged the evolution and mutations of the many languages of art’.

Last year Quentin Tarantino headed the Jury, and was accused of favouritism after his ex-girlfriend Sofia Coppola walked away with the Golden Lion for Somewhere.

Darren Aronofsky recently dropped out of directing X-men prequel The Wolverine due to family commitments following his divorce with Rachel Weisz.  His other project Machine Man will hopefully be finished by 2012.