15/04/2010

Presided by US filmmaker Tim Burton (see news), the competition jury for the 63rd Cannes Film Festival (May 12-23, 2010) had its members revealed today in Paris.

They include Italian actress Giovanna Mezzogiorno, fellow Italian Alberto Barbera (former Venice festival director and current head of the National Film Museum in Turin), UK thesp Kate Beckinsale, Spanish director Victor Erice, Puerto Rican actor Benicio Del Toro, French author-screenwriter Emmanuel Carrère and Indian director-actor-producer Shekhar Kapur.

The Un Certain Regard jury will be presided by French filmmaker Claire Denis, while the short and student films competition (organised by the Cinéfondation) will have a jury presided by Canada’s Atom Egoyan. Finally, Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal will head the Camera d’Or jury, which selects the best debut feature of the festival.

During the press conference announcing the Official Selection 2010, which for the moment includes 46 features, delegate general Thierry Frémaux emphasised that "the selection process was quite difficult" for advances in post-production technology now enable people to race to present a film at the last minute.

Moreover, commenting on the slight drop in the number of features submitted to selectors (1,665 compared to 1,670 last year) and the lower representation of certain countries among the selected films, he speculated that "it’s perhaps now that we’re seeing the effects of the economic crisis on creation".

Meanwhile, president Gilles Jacob paid tribute to the memory of German filmmaker Werner Schroeter and announced that the Cannes Festival website would now be available in eight languages. He also revealed that the festival had invited Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who is currently in prison, to join one of the juries (sign Cineuropa’s petition).

(Translated from French)