Will Smith, Jessica Chastain, Maren Ade, Paolo Sorrentino on Cannes jury

The 2017 Cannes Film Festival (May 17-28) has unveiled the jury for its main competition.

American actor and singer Will Smith will be joined by German director Maren Ade, whose Toni Erdmann played in Cannes competition last year.

The jury also features:

South Korean director Park Chan-wook, who has had three films play in competition at Cannes: The Handmaiden, Oldboy, and Thirst.

Italian director Paolo Sorrentino, who has been nominated for the Palme d’Or five times: Youth, The Great Beauty, This Must Be The Place, Family Friend and The Consequences Of Love.

American actress Jessica Chastain, a two-time Oscar nominee who also starred in Terrence Malick’s Palme d’Or-winning The Tree Of Life.

Chinese actress Fan Bingbing, whose credits include Xiaogang Feng’s I Am Not Madame Bovary.

French director, writer and actress Agnès Jaoui, whose 2004 comedy-drama Look At Me played in competition and won her the festival’s best screenplay prize.

French composer Gabriel Yared, the Oscar-winner behind The English Patient, The Talented Mr Ripley and Cold Mountain.

They join the previously announced jury president, Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar (Julieta).

The jury will present the Palme d’Or along with the main competition’s other prizes at the festival’s closing ceremony on May 28.

Last year’s Cannes competition jury was headed by Mad Max director George Miller and featured Arnaud Desplechin, Kirsten Dunst, Valeria Golino, Mads Mikkelsen, László Nemes, Vanessa Paradis, Katayoon Shahabi, and Donald Sutherland.

They awarded the prestigious Palme d’Or to Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake.

Elsewhere at this year’s festival, the follows jury members have also been annonced:

• Cannes: Uma Thurman to preside over Un Certain Regard jury
• Kleber Mendonça Filho to head Cannes Critics’ Week jury
• Cristian Mungiu to preside over Cannes Cinéfondation jury

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