67th Venice International Film Festival jury made in awarding prizes, and singled out Tarantino, accusing him of favoritism. He denied the charge. The international juries of the 67th Venice International Film Festival were composed as follows: Main Competition (Venezia 67) Horizons (Orizzonti) Opera Prima ("Luigi de Laurentiis" Award for a Debut Film) Controcampo Italiano Persol 3-D The Leone d'oro (Golden Lion) award was won by "Somewhere", directed by Sofia Coppola, a film based in part on Coppola's childhood as the daughter of acclaimed American director Francis Ford Coppola. Quentin Tarantino, the president of the jury that awarded the prize, hailed the film saying, "it grew
Francis Ford Coppola the latter's first film, "THX 1138". Shortly after completion of production they brought the finished film to Warner Bros., along with several other scripts for potential projects at their newly founded company, American Zoetrope. However, studio executives strongly disliked all the scripts, including "THX" and demanded that Coppola repay the $300,000 they had loaned him for the Zoetrope studio, as well as insisting on cutting five minutes from the film. The debt nearly closed Zoetrope and forced Coppola to reluctantly focus on "The Godfather". His company American Zoetrope also administers the Zoetrope Virtual Studio, a complete motion picture production studio