James Bond director Sam Mendes will preside over the 73rd Venice Film Festival jury, it was announced today. The fest runs August 31-September 10.

Mendes has precedence with Venice. His Tom Hanks-Paul Newman gangster film, The Road To Perdition, premiered there in 2002. He commented today that he’s “always had a strong personal connection with Venice” having worked as a student at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in 1984, and that his happiest film fest memory is launching Road To Perdition on the Lido.

Earlier this month. Deadline broke the news that Mendes and DreamWorks had captured screen rights to the Gay Talese New Yorker article The Voyeur’s Motel that got Hollywood all hot and bothered when the April 11th issue hit. Mendes will direct and produce with Steven Spielberg a film based on the article and a book that Talese has written. The book, which bears the same title, will be published July 12 by Grove Press. Word is the deal was at or close to $1M. That brought Mendes, who directed the last two James Bond blockbusters Skyfall and Spectre, back to DreamWorks where he made his feature directing debut with Best Picture Oscar winner American Beauty.

Mendes follows Alfonso Cuaron as jury president in Venice. Last year’s Golden Lion went to Lorenzo Vigas’ Desde Allá.