Halle Berry, Payal Kapadia, Alba Rohrwacher, Leïla Slimani, Dieudo Hamadi, Hong Sangsoo, Carlos Reygadas and Jeremy Strong have been announced as members of the Cannes Film Festival’s main Competition jury for its 78th edition running from May 13 to May 24.
They join previously announced Jury President Juliet Binoche. Together, they will award the Palme d’Or to one of the 21 films in the main Competition, as well as the Grand Prix, Jury Prize, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Actor awards.
U.S. Actress and filmmaker Berry was the first African-American woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Marc Forster’s Monster’s Ball (2002).
Alternating between blockbusters and independent productions, her credits include Jungle Fever (1991), Dorothy Dandridge (1999), X-Men (1999), Swordfish (2002), Die Another Day (2003), Gothika (2003), Frankie & Alice (2011), Cloud Atlas (2012), Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) and John Wick Parabellum (2019).
In 2020, she directed her first film, Bruised. Also a producer, she co-produces some of the films she stars in, most recently Alexandre Aja’s Never Let Go (2024).
Indian director and screenwriter Kapadia won the Grand Prix in Cannes last year for first film All We Imagine As Light. She worked on the Mumbai-set ode to friendship during her stay at the festival’s La Résidence de La Cinéfondation in 2019. The film brought India back to the Cannes Competition after a 30 year absence.
Italian actress Rohrwacher is a Cannes regular whose credits include Luca Guadagnino’s I am Love, Saverio Costanzo’s The Solitude of Prime Numbers, Marco Bellocchio’s Dormant Beauty and Laura Bispuri’s Sworn Virgin.
She has presented several films in the Cannes Competition, especially with her sister, director Alice Rohrwacher including The Wonders (Grand Prix 2014), Happy as Lazzaro (Best Screenplay ex-aequo 2018) and La Chimera (2023); and also with Matteo Garrone’s Tale of Tales (2014) and Nanni Moretti’s Tre Piani (2020).
Moroccan writer Slimani is best known in cinema circles for second novel Lullaby, which won the Prix Goncourt 2016, and was adapted for the cinema in 2019, starring Karin Viard and Leïla Bekhti.
Congolese Director, documentarist, producer Hamadi screened his documentary Downstream to Kinshasa in the Official Selection 2020. He is currently working on the series Milimo, les âmes errantes de Kinshasa which he is producing and directing for Canal +, and on his next feature film La Vie est un chemin de fer.
South Korea director and screenwriter Sangsoo is a Cannes regular who has played four films in Competition: Woman Is the Future of Man (2004), Tale of Cinema (2005), In Another Country (2012), The Day After (2017), and four films in the Un Certain Regard section: The Power of Kangkwon Province (1998), Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (2000), Hahaha (2010), which won him the Un Certain Regard Prize and The Day He Arrives (2011)
Mexican Director, screenwriter and producer Reygadas the won Caméra d’Or Special for his first film Japon, entered the Competition with his second feature, Battle in Heaven, returning to festival in 2007 with Silent Light, winning the Jury Prize (ex-aequo). He then won Best Director with Post Tenebras Lux in 2014.
U.S actor Jeremy Strong was in Cannes last year in the role of Roy Cohn in The Apprentice, which went on to earn him Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations. That same year, he returned to Broadway in An Enemy Of The People, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.
His previous film credits include Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7, Adam McKay’s The Big Short, James Gray’s Armageddon Time, Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty, and Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. For his iconic portrayal of Kendall Roy in HBO’s hit series Succession, Jeremy Strong won the Emmy, Golden Globe, and Critics Choice Award. Upcoming, he stars in Scott Cooper’s Bruce Springsteen biopic, Deliver Me From Nowhere to be released later in 2025.