The Cannes Film Festival has announced its official jury for the 68th edition, which include actors Jake Gyllenhaal, Sophie Marceau and director Guillermo del Toro.
Jury presidents Joel and Ethan Coen were announced earlier this year. Further jury members include 3 renowned European actresses – France’s Sophie Marceau, the U.K.’s Sienna Miller and Spain’s Rossy de Palma. Also serving on the jury is a second film director, Canada’s Xavier Dolan as well as composer and singer-songwriter Rolia Traoré from Mali.
The Jury mixes features figures whose career is intimately linked to Cannes, such as the five-times-prized Coen brothers whose fourth feature, “Barton Fink,” won the Palme d’Or, and Cannes habitué Xavier Dolan, whose “Mommy” shared the Jury Prize at last year’s festival.
Others are less regular attendees such as actress Rossy de Palma, an iconic presence and profile in Pedro Almodovar’s early international hits and Del Toro, who nevertheless first came to attention when his feature debut “Cronos” played Cannes Critics’ Week in 1993 then triumphed in terms of critical reception with “Pan’s Labyrinth,” which played in comopetition and is still considered one of his finest films. Gyllenhaal starred in David Fincher’s “Zodiac, selected for the Cannes Festival in 2007.
Boasting four women to five men, this year’s jury also shows breadth in terms of some member’s careers. Beyond Del Toro’s big Hollywood movies, France’s Sophie Marceau is almost certainly the only actress who has been a Bond girl and acted for maurice Pialat, in his “Police.” Sienna Miller broke through in Matthew Vaughan’s “Layer Cake,” starred in Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher,” whi competed at Cannes last year and in Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper.”
Least known to many in the film industry will be Traore a musician and singer who straddles modernity and tradition who broke through with 1998’s “Mouneissa.” Her latest release is 2013’s “Beatiful Africa.”
The Cannes Film Festival will be held May 13-24 in France.
