PH
Greta Gerwig, the filmmaker of the summer blockbuster “Barbie,” will preside over the jury at the Cannes Film Festival’s 77th edition in May, the festival announced Thursday.
Gerwig, a 40-year-old actress and screenwriter, takes over from Sweden’s Ruben Ostlund, whose jury won the Palme d’Or to courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall” in 2023.
According to the festival, she is the first American woman filmmaker to take on the role.
Gerwig’s presence will bring a youthful flair to Cannes, which has not had such a young president since 1966, when it was led by Sophia Loren, who was 31 at the time.
She is also the first woman to hold the prestigious role since actress Cate Blanchett took it in 2018.
“I love films — I love making them, I love going to them, I love talking about them,” Gerwig said in a statement.
“As a cinephile, Cannes has always been the pinnacle of what the universal language of movies can be”.
Aside from “Barbie”, a vivid feminist satire about the all-conquering line of plastic dolls, Gerwig has also directed “Lady Bird” (2017) and “Dr March’s Daughters” (2020).
She is currently working on an adaptation of “The Chronicles of Narnia” for Netflix.
The festival described Gerwig, who has starred in more than two dozen films, as a heroine for modern times who has rattled the status quo.
“This is an obvious choice, since Greta Gerwig so audaciously embodies the renewal of world cinema,” said Cannes boss Iris Knobloch and festival delegate Thierry Fremaux
“Beyond the seventh art, she is also the representative of an era that is breaking down barriers and mixing genres, and thereby elevating the values of intelligence and humanism,” they added.
In announcing a high-profile woman director, the world’s largest film festival stole back the spotlight from its younger competitor, February’s Berlinale.
The festival in the German capital on Monday announced its own jury president, 40-year-old Mexican-Kenyan actor Lupita Nyong’o, the first black person named to the role.
In choosing Gerwig, Cannes is also highlighting its continued ties with the powerful American film industry.
The Cannes Film Festival has yet to unveil the rest of the jury or the films in the official selection.
