This year, the Cannes Jury – which selects the winners of the Palme d’Or and other awards at the competition – is headed by Vincent Lyndon, last year’s Palm winner’s Limper Performance, “Titanium”Was the highlight of the film.
Other Jurors: Askar Farhadi, director of “A Hero” last year; British actress and director Rebecca Hall; Ladj Ly, who shared the jury prize (third place, honorary-mentioned award) for directing the film “Les Miserables” in 2019; U.S. Director Jeff Nichols; Indian actress Deepika Padukone; Numi Robes, star of the Swedish “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”; Joachim Trier, the “worst person in the world” who delighted the crowd last year; And Italian actress and director Jasmine Trinca.
People want to spread rumors about what is going on in the arbitral tribunal.
Did David Groenenberg, chairman of the 1999 Arbitration Council, persuade his colleagues to unanimously grant Palme to “Rosetta”, which was screened so late that many critics did not see it? (Gronenberg has denied the rumors, and in 2014, Dortennes’ next life – they won the ball again for “L’Enfant” – in 2014 he agreed with Bilge Hebrew about the eagle. He had shown that choice to a good man.)
Pedro Almodovar, President of the Arbitration Council in 2017, won the winner of that year, “The Square?” More than that, he really liked the French AIDS crisis movie “BPM (Beats Per Minute)”. (For the record, I was at the press conference after the awards ceremony, and nothing Almodov said was anything but a real compliment to him for both films.)
As Gronenberg pointed out in that interview, part of the problem is that journalists create a horse racing story, the festival unfolds, and often misjudge the winners. The festival basically treats members of the jury as the equivalent of an armored truck. Congratulations on getting interviewed with them.
Even when the arbitral tribunal explains its choices, at the final press conference, its members usually do not speak outside the school. There are exceptions: William Goldman, in his 1988 book “Hype & Glory” described what happened behind the scenes when he served on the jury.
Another strange feature of the Cannes jury – the ones chosen by the festival, not the chairman of the jury – is that no one cares much about the appearance of contradictions of interest. After Eastwood directed him to the Oscars for “Mystic River”, Sean Benn judged Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling”. Isabel Hubert co-starred in “The White Ribbon” directed by Michael Haneke, and worked with him on “The Piano Teacher” and “Time of the Wolf”. And Elle Fanning was on a jury in 2019, judging “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” starring Ellie’s sister Dakota Fanning in the supporting role. (The movie came out empty-handed.)
