PARS.- He Cannes film festival announce the Jew that the film-maker Greta Gerwig, director Barbie, delirious feminist comedy and great box office success, presiding over the May jury from its 77th edition.
The 40-year-old director, also an actress and screenwriter, will assume the position from May 14 to 25, taking over from the Swede Ruben Ostlund, whose jury awarded the Palme d’Or in 2023 to the legal drama. Anatomy of a each. Gerwig will be the first American filmmaker to assume the position, the festival stressed in a statement.
Gerwig’s presence will give a rejuvenated air to the great French film festival, which has not had such a young president since 1966, when it was headed by the Italian actress Sophia Loren, then 31 years old.
Gerwig will also be the first woman since the Australian actress and director Cate Blanchet, who in 2018 headed the jury of the prestigious festival, traditionally with a male overrepresentation and few exceptions such as the New Zealand director Jane Campion or the French actress Isabelle Huppert.
“I love movies: I love making them, I love going to see them, I love talking about them,” Gerwig said in a statement. “As a film fan, Cannes has always represented for me the summit of what the universal language of cinema can be,” he added.
In addition to Barbie, a delirious satire on the famous brand of plastic dolls, Gerwig directed Lady Bird (2017) y Little Women (2020).
He is currently working on an adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia for Netflix.
Before the Oscars
Cannes festival organizers described the filmmaker, who has also acted in more than two dozen films, as a modern-day heroine who shook up the status quo. “This is an obvious choice, as Greta Gerwig boldly embodies the renewal of world cinema,” declared Cannes director Iris Knobloch and festival delegate Thierry Fremaux.
“Beyond the seventh art, it is also the representative of an era that is breaking barriers and mixing genres, and thus elevating the values of intelligence and humanism,” they added.
With the announcement of this director as president of its jury, the largest film festival in the world stole the spotlight from its younger competitor, the Berlinale, which is held in February.
The German capital festival announced on Monday its own president of the jury, the 40-year-old Mexican-Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o, the first black person appointed to the position.
Cannes thus puts Gerwig in the spotlight, even before the start of the Oscar race, postponed until March 10 as a result of a historic six-month strike that paralyzed the Hollywood industry.
Barbie, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, is already in first position in the race for the Golden Globes, with nominations in nine categories.
With this film, Gerwig has gone down in Hollywood history this year as the most profitable director, the first to overcome the barrier of one billion dollars at the box office. Released in the summer, the film grossed more than $1.44 billion worldwide.
With its election, Cannes also highlights its continued ties to the powerful American film industry.
The Cannes Film Festival has not yet announced the rest of its jury for the 2024 edition or the films in the official selection.
FUENTE: AFP
