The American film director Sofia Coppola, the Iranian actress Leila Hatami and actors Gael García Bernal and Willem Dafoe will join Jane Campion next month on the Cannes International Film Festival jury, according to organisers.
Coppola, whose second feature film Lost in Translation was nominated for four Oscars, is no stranger to the festival. The 42-year-old's third film Marie Antoinette competed at the festival in 2006 and The Bling Ring opened the new talent section last year. Hatami is the star of the Oscar-winning Iranian drama A Separation. Mexico's Bernal shot to fame with his role in the Oscar-nominated film Amores Perros and his role as a young Che Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries earned him a Bafta nomination. He is also a director and producer.
The American actor Dafoe has acted in about 80 films – the most recent being The Grand Budapest Hotel (out tomorrow in UAE cinemas) – and was twice nominated for an Oscar.
Also part of the jury will be the Chinese director Jia Zhangke, whose gritty depiction of life in the Middle Kingdom has won him acclaim but also drawn the ire of the country’s censors.
Other jury members are the French actress Carole Bouquet, the South Korean actress Jeon Do-yeon and the Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn.
The jury, headed by the New Zealand director Campion, will award the coveted Palme d’Or to one of the 18 films in competition at the festival, which runs from May 14 to 25.
* AFP