The 2023 Cannes Film Festival officially has its jury.
ADVERTISEMENTAfter much speculation over who’d be joining previously announced Cannes jury president Ruben Östlund on the ticket, the 76th edition has finally unveiled its complete jury.
Östlund will be joined by Moroccan director Maryam Touzani (The Blue Caftan), There Will Be Blood / The Batman actor Paul Dano, Captain Marvel actress Brie Larson, French actor Denis Ménochet (Inglorious Basterds, Jusqu’à la garde), British-Zambian screenwriter and director Rungano Nyoni (I Am Not A Witch), Afghan author Atiq Rahimi (‘The Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear’, ‘The Patience Stone’), Argentinian director and screenwriter Damián Szifrón (Wild Tales, To Catch a Killer), and Titane director Julia Ducournau, who won the top prize in 2021.
It’s an impressive jury and one to get excited about, especially because most of the Class of 2023 have close ties with Cannes.
Ducournau presented her first short, 2011’s Junior, on the Croisette, following up with Critics’ Week entry Grave (Raw) in 2016, only to win the Palme d’Or in 2021 with the face-melting cinematic gut-punch Titane – becoming the first solo female winner of the prize. (Jane Campion shared the Palme d’Or in 1993 for The Piano, with Chen Kaige and his film Farewell My Concubine.)
Nyoni’s breathtaking debut film I Am Not A Witch had its world premiere in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight sidebar back in 2017, while Touzani’s acclaimed first feature film, Adam, screened in Un Certain Regard and was short-listed for an Oscar.
Elsewhere, Szifrón’s deliriously acerbic Wild Tales screened in Cannes in 2014, and Dano walked the Cannes red carpet for Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth in 2015 and Bong Joon Ho’s Okja in 2018.
As for the 2023 jury president Östlund, he finds himself in the elite club of two-time Palme d’Or winners, having claimed Cannes’ top prize both for The Triangle of Sadness last year and for The Square in 2017. Previously, his 2008 sophomore effort Involuntary screened in Un Certain Regard, his 2011 feature Play premiered in Directors’ Fortnight, and his international breakthrough Force Majeure screened in Un Certain Regard in 2014. So, pretty much his whole career has had Cannes as a backdrop.
The jury will award the Palme d’Or to one of the 21 films announced in competition. The awards will be presented on 27 May at the closing ceremony. The final festival screening for its closing night, Pixar’s Elemental, will follow the Palme d’Or announcement.
As previously announced, the Un Certain Regard sidebar section and subsequent jury will be presided over by Oscar nominee John C. Reilly, with French director and screenwriter Alice Winocour (Proxima, Revoir Paris), German actress Paula Beer (Undine, Afire), Franco-Cambodian director and producer Davy Chou (Return To Seoul), and Belgian actress Émilie Dequenne (Rosetta, Close) also serving as jurors.
Check out the full 2023 Cannes Film Festival line-up here.
The 76th edition of Cannes will run from 16 – 27 May.
