A few weeks before its 71st edition, the jury of the Cannes Film Festival is becoming clearer day by day. New arrival, the Franco-Swiss director, Ursula Meier.
Created in 1978 under the presidency of Gilles Jacob, the Caméra d'Or rewards the first film of a director. All the first works of the official selection are eligible. It is recalled that the official selection includes all the films screened during the Cannes Film Festival. The lucky winner will therefore be able to compete in Competition, Un Certain Regard, at the Directors' Fortnight, the Critics' Week or even the midnight screenings or Out of Competition. Because the Cannes Film Festival, like other events of the 7th art, comes in several categories with the supreme one, the Competition (which awards seven prizes).
Regarding the Caméra d'Or, last year the prize went to Léonor Séraille for Young Woman. And the year before another woman also French (Houda Benyamina) had conquered the Cannes public with Divines. Ursula Meier succeeds Sandrine Kiberlain and will have the difficult task of rewarding the first feature film that will have distinguished itself the most (remember that we put art in competition). His latest feature film, Journal de ma Tête , was released on January 27 in Switzerland. She will be accompanied by a jury of film personalities, which will be unveiled in the coming days.
We can be pretty sure that the winner will not have his or her film present in Competition at Cannes. The queen category generally offers works by experienced filmmakers. Steven Soderbergh can boast of being one of the few to have had the chance to see his first feature film compete for the Palme (and get it!) in 1989. We will carefully scrutinize the first films of the Directors' Fortnight, the Critics' Week and especially the Certain Regard.
A few days ago, we learned that Bertrand Bonnello would preside over the Cinéfondation and Short Film Jury. The Cinéfondation, under the direction of Cristian Mungiu last year, is a parallel category that brings together student films from all over the world. The full cast of the various jury presidents will be revealed gradually in the coming days. The next name will be the one who presides over Un Certain Regard. Just Focus will keep you informed!
