CANNES FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES FULL JURY LINEUP
The Cannes Festival just announced who this year’s jury will be, completing the announcement made a few weeks ago that this year’s president will be filmmaker George Miller. Here they are: Arnaud Desplechin, Kirsten Dunst, Valeria Golino, Mads Mikkelsen, László Nemes, Vanessa Paradis, Katayoon Shahabi, Donald Sutherland.
The composition of the jury is more or less in line with tradition, i.e., filmmakers who last year were in competition are selected as part of the jury, as is the case with Laszlo Nemes who “Saul Fia” ran as part of the competition program last year.
The panel of actors and filmmakers is particularly enhanced by a gender-equal split and such wonderful actresses as Kirsten Dunst and Valeria Golino. Equally welcome is the addition of long-time acting veteran Donald Sutherland.
On the other hand the festival seems to have a predilection for women when selecting Iranians, this year producer Katayoon Shahabi was picked (she is the producer of the new Asghar Farhadi film which got slided into the competition after the initial April 14th programs announcement was made in Paris). In 2014 Leila Hatami was a part on the Jane Campion jury and Marjane Satrapi was on the Sean Penn jury in 2008. You’ll have to go back as far as 1993 to find an Iranian man on the jury, in the person of Abbas Kiarostami.