Ava DuVernay, Kristen Stewart, Denis Villeneuve, More Join 2018 Cannes Film Festival Jury

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Ava DuVernay, Kristen Stewart, Denis Villeneuve, More Join 2018 Cannes Film Festival Jury

The Cannes Film Festival official selection jury always consists of incredible talent from across the world. Last year, the Jury was lead by acclaimed Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar and included Jessica Chastain and Will Smith, and in 2016 the Jury was led by George Miller, and included Kirsten Dunst and Mads Mikkelsen.

This year, for the 71st Cannes Film Festival, the Jury will be led by two-time Academy Award winner actress Cate Blanchett, and includes American filmmaker Ava DuVernay, actress Kristin Stewart, French-Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve, French actress Léa Seydoux, Chinese actor Chang Chen, French director Robert Guédiguian, Burundian singer Khadja Nin and Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev, according to an official festival Instagram post.

The festival has recently come under some criticism for the amount of female directors represented in its official film selection lineup. “For the last four years, I’ve become much more concerned about the presence of women at the festival,” artistic director Thierry Fremaux told Variety. “I’ve been having discussions with intelligent women like Jessica Chastain and have listened to their advice about ways to improve certain things. We’ve started paying more attention to the gender ratio on our selection committees, for instance. Right now, two out of the three committees have as many women as men.”

Now, to our new Jury members: DuVernay most recently directed A Wrinkle in Time and her Oscar-nominated documentary feature 13th. She has yet to have a film in Cannes’ official selection. Stewart has appeared in numerous films premiering at Cannes, including Personal Shopper and 2014’s Clouds of Sils Maria with Juliette Binoche. Villeneuve debuted his 2015 film Sicario at the festival, and most recently directed Blade Runner 2049 with Ryan Gosling and Arrival with Amy Adams.

Seydoux made history at Cannes in 2013 when she, along with her costar Adèle Exarchopoulos, became the first actors to ever win the Palme d’Or for Blue is the Warmest Color. She also starred in Cannes selection films Midnight in Paris, It’s Only the End of the World, The Lobster and more. Chen is best known for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Happy Together and Forever Young. Activist filmmaker Guédiguian won France’s Prix Louis Delluc for Marius and Jeannette in 1997, the award given to the best French film of the year and only to French filmmakers. Musician Nin was awarded the Prize for Feminine Action by the African Women’s League for her mixture of pop, African and Afro-Cuban rhythms. Russian director Zvyagintsev’s 2014 film Leviathan received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film and last year his film Loveless won the Jury Prize at the festival.

The festival begins May 8 with Asghar Farhadi’s Everybody Knows and will also screen Solo: A Star Wars Story. You can find the full lineup here, which does not include the last-minute addition of Lars Von Trier’s The House that Jack Built. The festival concludes on May 19.

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