The 74th Cannes Film Festival has unveiled its jury which includes five women; a majority in the nine-person group including President Spike Lee.
The jury includes French-Senegalese actor-director Mati Diop whose 2019 movie Atlantics took home the Grand Prix from the festival; Crazy Heart Oscar nominated actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, French Inglorious Basterds actress Mélanie Laurent, Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner and French singer Mylène Farmer.
Rounding out the jury are French actor and recent Golden Globe and BAFTA nominated The Mauritanian actor Tahar Rahim, Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho and South Korean actor Song Kang-Ho who starred in the 2019 Cannes Palme d’Or winner and ultimate Oscar Best Picture winner, Parasite. Song has been a frequent star in Bong Joon Ho’s canon including The Host and Memories of Murder.
Diop’s Atlantics was shortlisted as one of the ten best international films at the Oscars. She has also directed several short-films and medium-length films including Snow Canon (2011), Big in Vietnam (2012), A Thousand Suns (2013), and In My Room (2020), which were also nominated and awarded in many international festivals.
Farmer has sold 35M records and has had 2.7M attend her performances across Europe and Russia. She has worked with Jean-Baptiste Mondino, Peter Lindbergh, Herb Ritts, Abel Ferrara, Luc Besson, Dominique Issermann, Olivier Dahan, Ching Siu-tung, Darius Khondji, Agusti Villaronga. Her music videos include “Libertine”, “Sans contrefaçon”, “California”, “L’Âme-Stram-Gram”, and “Pourvu qu’elles soient douces”. She starred in Pascal Laugier’s 2018 film movie Ghostland.
Gyllenhaal recently made her feature directorial debut The Lost Daughter, which she also adapted, and received a best supporting actress nomination for 2010’s Crazy Heart. Her feature film acting credits include Donnie Darko, Secretary, Sherrybaby, The Dark Knight, and The Kindergarten Teacher. She starred in and produced the HBO series The Deuce for three seasons.
Born in Vienna, Hausner studied directing at the Film Academy of Vienna where she made her first short films, Flora (1996) and Inter-View (1999), both awarded. Features she directed, Lovely Rita (2001) and Hotel (2004), premiered at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section. In 2009, her movie Lourdes was selected at the Venice Film Festival where it was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize, followed by other nods, such as the European Film Award for Best Actress for Sylvie Testud. Her fifth movie and the first in English, Little Joe, was selected in competition at Cannes in 2019 where Emily Beecham received the Best Actress award.
Laurent has won two Césars and starred in over 40 movies from such filmmakers as Mike Mills, Denis Villeneuve and Angelina Jolie. She made her feature directorial debut with The Adopted (2011), following up with Breathe which premiered at Critics’ Week in 2014. Her environmental-focused documentary Tomorrow became the biggest French documentary release of 2015. This year she’ll direct and headline Le Bal Des Folles adapted from Victoria Mas’ short story.
Filho’s first movie, Neighboring Sounds, made its world premiere at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in 2012 and was Brazil’s entry in the race for the Oscars. His second feature film, Aquarius, starring Sonia Braga, played in competition at the 69th Cannes in 2016. before being nominated for a César and at the Independent Spirit Awards. In 2019, Bacurau, which Filho co-directed with Juliano Dornelles, screened in competition in Cannes was awarded the Jury Prize.
Rahim broke through in the Jacques Audiard movie A Prophet which received nine Césars and the Cannes Grand Prix. Rahim won the César for Best Male Newcomer and for Best Actor. He returned to Cannes in competition with The Past by Asghar Farhadi and Grand Central by Rebecca Zlotowski (2013). He went on to play numerous leading roles both in France and worldwide, including in The Price Of Success by Teddy Lussi-Modeste, Samba by Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache and Mary Magdalene by Garth Davis, as well as in the series The Looming Tower opposite Jeff Daniels. He’ll star next in Don Juan from Serge Bozon and She Came To Me by Rebecca Miller.
Lee, as previously reported, is the first Black Cannes Film Festival jury president.
All together, they will watch 24 films in competition during the delayed film festival from July 6-17. The jury will announced its winners on the last day of the festival.
Source: Deadline