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Daily News
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Cannes Jury Fuels Competitive Environment
A multi-cultural group of renown filmmakers and actors make up this year’s nine member jury headed by Patrice Chéreau.
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
By J. Sperling Reich
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As is tradition on the Cannes Film Festival’s first day, the jurors selected to judge this year’s crop of movies screening in competition. Twenty films from all over the world have been selected by festival programmers to compete for the festival’s coveted top prize, the Palm d’Or. Nineteen films, including the opening movie Fanfan la Tulipe and The Matrix Reloaded, are screening out of competition, along with twenty titles in the festival’s sidebar, Un Certain Regard.
Director Patrice Chéreau will act as president and preside over a jury made up of acclaimed filmmakers, writers, actors and actresses. Joining Chéreau are actresses Aishwarya Rai (known as the Julia Roberts of India), Meg Ryan and Karin Viard; actors Erri De Luca and Jean Rouchefort; and directors Steven Soderbergh, Danis Tanovic and Jiang Wen.
In the weeks leading up to Cannes, rumors circulated that both Soderbergh and Ryan, along with filmmakers and actresses of American festival entries, might boycott the event over France’s stance on the Iraqi war. Neither Soderbergh nor Ryan, however, had even heard of such a boycott. In fact, Ryan thought the festival might help the two countries overcome their differences. “The idea that we can share what is common in the human experience beyond boundaries of nations is something to celebrate and encourage,” she said.
Chéreau himself waived off any idea that there were fewer American films at this year’s festival due to an anti-American sentiment among festival programmers. “I know that a lot has been said concerning France and the United States,” he commented, “but I also know that there are three French people and two Americans on the jury, and that surely is proof that we can get together and talk with one another.”
Three of the jurors have won prizes at pervious festivals in Cannes, including Steven Soderbergh, whose Sex, Lies & Videotape earned the Palm d’Or in 1989. “I think you could make the argument that I was created by the Cannes Film Festival, which I think is not a bad thing at all,” he said. “It made a name for me certainly outside the United States. It allowed me to go and make lots of mistakes, which is a real luxury. I’ve always been impressed by the diversity that the festival encourages in the films that it selects to screen and the films that it chooses to reward. It’s the most famous, most influential festival in the world, so I feel very lucky that one my first film I was recognized.”
Just two years ago Danis Tanovic’s Bosnian film No Man’s Land won the screenplay prize. It was the first prize for the movie in what would be many, culminating in a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Tanovic recalls his first appearance in Cannes quite fondly. “I remember it was the 12th of May 2001 at five o’clock. We were walking up the stairs, and we were nobody, but when we came down we were glorious,” he exclaimed. “We were happy people, and everybody wanted to talk to us. It changed my life.”
Like Tanovic, Ryan has also found it hard to forget her first Cannes experience. “I came here first when I was 17 with a backpack and two friends and a Eurorail pass, and we slept on the beach,” laughed Ryan.
Now a famous actress, Ryan says she hopes to learn from her co-jurors. “I think mostly I’m here as a student, and I hope to learn from these distinguished people in our discussions,” she responded when asked what she hoped to gain from being a festival juror. “I’m looking forward to seeing movies that I probably wouldn’t see in the States. I’m here to celebrate an art form.”
Naturally, all the jurors mentioned what an honor it was to be chosen for the jury. And while Aiswarya Rai hopes to share her opinion on cinema with her peers, Tanovic joked that he didn’t want to hear it. “I know I don’t agree with Patrice, I don’t agree with Aishwarya, so we’re going to have fun,” he jibed.
| Filmmaker Jian Wen, who won the grand prize at the 2000 festival with Guizi Laik Le, was just happy he didn’t have to feel the pressure of having a film compete this year. “This is the second time for me in Cannes,” he said. “The fist time I came as a director and an actor. This time I work in the jury. The only difference for me is the first time I was very stressed by the jury. This time, maybe I’ll give the stress to other people.”
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Many filmmakers who have participated on the festival’s past juries have stated that they don’t feel judging a film is possible or even fair. Chéreau, on the other hand, feels it’s only natural for there to be a feature film competition. “This is a job and a profession in which competition is present everywhere,” he shrugged. “Whenever a film is released, it is immediately in competition with all the other films that are released the same week. I think that when you finish making a film we’re aware that that this new film is in competition with the previous films that we’ve made. We are working in a permanently competitive environment.”
| Soderbergh agreed. “I feel if you’ve submitted your film to the festival and if we’ve accepted our role as juror, than that’s the deal,” he argued. “Nothing is worse to me than putting a movie out and having the public in large numbers say that they don’t like the film by not showing up, so this is actually a much more nurturing environment. At least if you bring your film here, you know that a group of artists is looking at your film and taking it very seriously.”
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So then, how will Chéreau and his jury be judging the films in this year’s competition at Cannes? None of the jurors would be specific, but Chéreau did say he would not be an overwhelming influence in the final decision. “We have to invent our own criteria,” he stated. “I don’t want to impose criteria on the others. We shall define them as we go along.”
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