Cannes Film Festival has announced that Demi Moore, Chloe Zhao, Ruth Negga, Laura Wandel, Stellan Skarsgard, Isaach De Bankole, Diego Cespedes, and Paul Laverty are set to join president Park Chan-wook for the festival’s main competition jury for its 79th edition running May 13 – 24.
The jury will be tasked with awarding the coveted Palme d’Or to one of the 22 films in this year’s competition among other traditional prizes during the festival’s closing night ceremony on May 23.
American actress and producer Moore makes her grand return to the Croisette after her star turn in Coralie Fargeat’s Cannes best screenplay-winning The Substance that earned her a best actress Oscar nomination. She will next be seen in Boots Riley’s I Love Boosters and Roger Ross Williams’ Strange Arrivals.
Beijing-born director, screenwriter, editor and producer Zhao is best known for double Academy Award-winning Nomadland and 2025 hit Hamnet that garnered Jessie Buckley the lead actress Oscar and won best motion picture – drama at the Golden Globes and outstanding British film at the Baftas. She is notably the second woman to be nominated twice for the Academy Award for best director.
Ethiopian-born, English and Ireland-raised actress and producer Negga was in Cannes in 2016 for Jeff Nichols’ competition title Loving that earned her an Oscar nomination. Her film and TV credits include Rebecca Hall’s Passing and limited series Presumed Innocent that earned her an Emmy nomination.
Belgian writer-director Wandel attended Cannes in 2021 with her debut feature Playground that premiered in Un Certain Regard and won the FIPRESCI prize, and her Adam’s Sake starring Lea Drucker opened Critics’ Week last year.
Swedish actor Skarsgård is back on the Croisette after Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value won the grand prix at least year’s festival and the actor earned an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. His vast filmography includes Good Will Hunting, Pirates Of The Caribbean, and Mamma Mia! and he has been in a slew of films selected in Cannes incuding Jonathan Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quichotte, and Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia and Beaking The Waves.
De Bankolé is known for his work with Claire Denis including Chocolat, No Fear, No Die, White Material and Jim Jarmusch in Night On Earth, Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai, Coffee And Cigarettes and The Limits Of Control. He has made his way into blockbusters with roles in Casino Royale, Miami Vice, and Black Panther and will next be seen on big screens in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Three.
Chilean writer-director Céspedes won the Un Certain Regard prize at last year’s festival for his debut feature The Mysterious Gaze Of The Flamingo and his previous shorts have screened at or won awards at major festivals like San Sebastian, Sundance and Toronto. He is currently developing his second feature The Case Of A Boy Who Lost His Heart.
Laverty has worked with Ken Loach and producer Rebecca O’Brien for 30 years and wrote the screenplays for Palme d’or-winning films The Wind That Shakes The Barley and I, Daniel Blake among a slew of other top festival prizes. He has written 14 films for Loach including 11 selected for Cannes Competition such as My Name Is Joe, Looking For Eric, The Angels’ Share, The Old Oak, and Blake.
The group will join South Korean auteur Park, who will return to the Croisette after winning the best director prize in 2022 for Decision To Leave and earning awards for all of his films that played in the festival’s competition including the grand prix in 2014 for Old Boy, the Jury prize in 2009 for Thirst, and a technical prize (the CST Award for best artist-technician) for The Handmaiden in 2016.
Cannes Film Festival’s closing ceremony will be broadcast live by France Télévisions in France and by Brut across the globe.
No comments yet