Tarantino to head Venice festival jury

Quentin Tarantino will head the jury at this year's Venice International Film Festival, it has been confirmed.

The American director - famed for movies 'Kill Bill' and 'Pulp Fiction' - will chair the international jury at the event, which runs from September 1 to 11.

Organisers praised the 47-year-old filmmaker for his vision, and proclaimed him to be on a par with a "rock star".

A statement read: "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.

"His highly original style draws dynamically from past movies, comics and popular Asia cinema, but does so to revive a taste for narrative plots, skilfully blending genre cinema and 'pulp fiction'."

Tarantino's most recent film, 'Inglorious Basterds', picked up an Academy Award earlier this year for Christopher Waltz's supporting role as Colonel Hans Landa.

He is currently working on the script for 'Kill Bill: Vol. 3', due for release in 2014.