Veteran French actor Vincent Lindon will head the main jury at this year’s Cannes Film Festival which awards the coveted Palme d’Or top prize, organisers said Tuesday.
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The jury under Lindon, who co-starred in the 2021 winner “Titane”, will choose between 21 movies in the main competition at the film fest which runs from May 17 to 28.
Lindon, 62, will be accompanied by eight fellow jurors.
They are British actress and director Rebecca Hall, Indian actress Deepika Padukone, Swedish actress Noomi Rapace, Italian actress and director Jasmine Trinca, Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, French director Ladj Ly, American director Jeff Nichols, and Norwegian director Joachim Trier.
The line-up for this year’s festival, the 75th Cannes edition, is a mix of cult arthouse directors and Hollywood glamour.
Canadian horror maestro David Cronenberg, US filmmaker James Gray and France’s Claire Denis are among the competitors for the Palme d’Or.
They are expected to bring a bevy of stars to the red carpet, with Cronenberg’s sci-fi/horror cross-over “Crimes of the Future” starring Kristen Stewart, Lea Seydoux and Viggo Mortensen.
Denis returns with a thriller set in Central America — “The Stars at Noon” — featuring Taron Egerton and Robert Pattinson.
Gray’s entry, “Armageddon Time”, is a tale based on his New York adolescence featuring Anne Hathaway, Oscar Isaac, Cate Blanchett and Anthony Hopkins.
Tom Cruise will attend the much-delayed world premiere of “Top Gun: Maverick”, the sequel to his 1986 blockbuster, playing out of competition.
Organisers are also slowly waking up to the fact that the sight of celebrities and moguls arriving on private jets and mega-yachts doesn’t seem so chic in an age of impending climate disaster.
So this year: no plastic, lots of electric cars, and most symbolic of all, a red carpet that is half the size and made from recycled material.
Among those submitting themselves to the famously blunt audiences of Cannes are several past winners: Italy’s Nanni Moretti with his new film “Tre Piani”, France’s Jacques Audiard (“Les Olympiades”) and Thailand’s master of the slow-burn Apichatpong Weerasethakul with his English-language debut (“Memoria”).
The opening night film is also a first in English for France’s Leo Carax, directing Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard in what is certain to be a bizarre and visually arresting musical about a celebrity couple and their mysterious child, “Annette”.
Sean Penn will also be hoping for a personal resurrection after his catastrophic Cannes appearance in 2016, when his Africa-based humanitarian love story “The Last Face” was mercilessly booed.
The panel judging the 24 entries is headed by US director Spike Lee — the first time a black man has led the jury — and includes “The Serpent” star Tahar Rahim and US actress Maggie Gyllenhaal.
