The Cannes Festival announced Thursday that Greta Gerwing, director of the film “Barbie” and leading figure in North American author cinema, will chair the jury for the 77th edition.
The 40-year-old director, also actress and screenwriter, will succeed the Swede Ruben Östlund, whose jury awarded the Palme d’Or to ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ this year.
She is “the first North American filmmaker to take on this role,” festival organizers pointed out. And its presence will bring a touch of youth to the Croisette: Cannes has never had such a young president since Sophia Loren turned 31 in 1966.
She is also the first director since actress Cate Blanchett in 2018 to take on this prestigious role, in which men are still overrepresented, with notable exceptions such as Jane Campion and Isabelle Huppert.
“I love films very much,” says the American director in a festival statement.
“I love making them, I love going to see them, I love talking about them for hours. As a cinephile, Cannes has always been for me the pinnacle of what the universal cinematic language can represent.”
“Barbie,” starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, is dominating the Golden Globes race, with nominations in nine categories. The film, which was released in the summer, grossed more than 1.44 billion dollars (1.3 billion euros) worldwide.
In addition to this crazy comedy with a feminist message, the script of which she co-wrote, Greta Gerwig established herself as “the muse of North American independent cinema”, according to the same note.
He directed “Lady Bird” (2017) and “The Daughters of Doctor March” (2020), is preparing an adaptation of “The World of Narnia” for Netflix and has also appeared in more than 20 films.
“Greta Gerwig courageously embodies the renaissance of world cinema” and “also emerges as a representative of an era that wants to abolish borders and mix genres to allow intelligence and humanism to triumph,” said the festival chairman, Iris Knobloch, and the general delegate. Thierry Fremaux.
Source: DN
