Demi Moore, Chloé Zhao, Stellan Skarsgård, and Others Join Park Chan-Wook on Cannes Jury
The 79th Cannes Film Festival has announced its main competition jury, which includes prominent actors Demi Moore, Stellan Skarsgård, Ruth Negga, and Isaach De Bankolé. They will be joined by acclaimed filmmakers such as Oscar-winning writer-director Chloé Zhao, Chilean writer-director Diego Céspedes, Belgian writer-director Laura Wandel, and Paul Laverty, a longtime collaborator with Ken Loach.
The jury’s lineup was revealed on Monday, with writer-director Park Chan-Wook already announced as the jury president. This panel will oversee the evaluation of 22 films competing for awards at the festival, scheduled to run from May 12 to May 23 along the French Riviera.
This year’s competition slate features a diverse array of international films, although it offers fewer entries from the U.S. Notable directors represented include Pedro Almodóvar, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Asghar Farhadi, James Gray, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Cristian Mungiu, Na Hong-jin, László Nemes, Marie Kreutzer, Pawel Pawlikowski, Léa Mysius, and Ira Sachs.
The festival will kick off with the Out of Competition film The Electric Kiss by Pierre Salvadori on May 12.
Demi Moore returns to Cannes after her acclaimed role in 2024’s The Substance, which was a standout title that year and received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Stellan Skarsgård achieved success with last year’s festival hit, Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, which garnered Oscar nominations following its Grand Prix win.
Chloé Zhao, recognized for her Oscar-nominated film Hamnet, previously won both Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for Nomadland in 2021. Ruth Negga was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Loving, which competed at Cannes in 2016, while Isaach De Bankolé is a familiar face at the festival, having appeared in several films directed by Claire Denis and Jim Jarmusch.
Laura Wandel has significant Cannes experience, having directed three films at the festival, including her 2021 feature debut Playground, which was shortlisted for an Oscar. Diego Céspedes won the Un Certain Regard Prize for his debut feature The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo last year after showcasing earlier works at Cannes.
Paul Laverty has an extensive collaboration history with Ken Loach, having written 14 films for him, 11 of which have screened at Cannes. Notably, two of these films, The Wind That Shakes the Barley and I, Daniel Blake, won the prestigious Palme d’Or. Laverty also received the screenplay prize in 2002 for Sweet Sixteen.
