The director of Barbie and Ladybird, Greta Gerwig, has been selected as the jury president for the 77th Cannes Film Festival, taking place between May 14-25. Gerwig is the first American female director to preside over the Cannes Film Festival jury, and she will be the youngest jury president since Sophia Loren.
In 2023, the acclaimed American director, screenwriter, and actress Greta Gerwig, who achieved significant success at the box office with the Barbie film, is marking a new milestone in her career as the Jury President of the 77th Cannes Film Festival, which will be held from May 14 to 25, 2024.
Gerwig will become the first American female director to assume the role of jury president at the Cannes Film Festival. Additionally, she will be the youngest jury president since Sophia Loren in 1966.
In a lengthy statement announcing Gerwig’s appointment to the role, the festival said: “Gerwig manages to combine what was previously judged to be incompatible: delivering arthouse blockbusters, narrowing the gap between art and industry, exploring contemporary feminist issues with deft as well as depth, and declaring her demanding artistic ambition from within an economic model that she embraces in order to put to better use.”
Cannes festival president Iris Knobloch added that Gerwig was the “obvious choice”, while the festival’s general delegate Thierry Frémaux said she was “the representative of an era that is breaking down barriers and mixing genres, and thereby elevating the values of intelligence and humanism.”
“I love films”
Following the announcement of her presidency, Gerwig said, “I love films. I love making them, I love going to them, I love talking about them. As a cinephile, Cannes has always been the pinnacle of what the universal language of movies can be.”
Gerwig, who starred in the 2013 cult comedy-drama film “Frances Ha,” also directed films like “Lady Bird” (2017) and “Dr. March’s Daughters” (2020) in addition to Barbie. Currently, she is working on “The Chronicles of Narnia” for Netflix.
In Germany, the 74th International Berlin Film Festival (Berlinale) will take place from February 5 to February 25, 2024, and the jury presidency for the event has been assigned to Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o (40). Nyong’o became the first black individual to undertake this role at the Berlinale.