Hong Kong film director Wong Kar-wai will fill the vacancy left by late British director Anthony Minghella as head of the jury for this year's Shanghai International Film Festival, Shanghai media reported Tuesday.

Minghella's sudden death last month forced the festival's organizing committee to denote a new jury chairman before the festival opens on June 14.

Wong Kar-wai was selected for being a "long-time friend of the annual festival," Xinmin Evening News quoted the organizing committee as saying.

Wong is a frequent attendee at the Shanghai festival, one of Asia's largest annual movie fairs. Two of Wong's well-known works, 2046 and My Blueberry Nights, were made in cooperation with the Shanghai Film Group, showing his long-standing kinship with the Shanghai film industry, the report says.

The 11th Shanghai International Film Festival is scheduled to run from June 14 to 22. Wong was originally set to promote My Blueberry Nights, his latest and first English-language film, in Europe during this time, but he has agreed to change his plans to take the festival position, the report says.

(CRIENGLISH.com April 8, 2008)