MUMBAI: Italian-American actress and director Isabella Rossellini will preside over the Jury of the 61st Berlin International Film Festival to be held from 10 to 20 February next year.

"It‘s fantastic that Isabella Rossellini will be the President of the Berlinale Jury in 2011," says the festival‘s director Dieter Kosslick. 

Rossellini, one of the most renowned actresses in international cinema has also become a distinguished producer and director. The daughter of Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and of Italian director Roberto Rossellini, she first started her career as a fashion designer and journalist.

Her acting debut came in 1976, when she appeared with her mother in Vincente Minelli‘s A Matter Of Time. She then went on to do films by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, Norman Mailer, Robert Zemeckis, Joel Schumacher, John Schlesinger, Peter Weir, Abel Ferrara, Stanley Tucci, Guy Maddin, Peter Greenaway and many others.

She acquired international fame in David Lynch‘s films Blue Velvet (1986) and Wild at Heart (1990).

In addition to her career in cinema, Isabella Rossellini was also a top cosmetics model in the ‘80s onward.