The jury at the film festival is more feminine and diverse than ever. But the stars make it clear that not enough has changed yet.
On Tuesday, July 6th, 2021, the 74th International Film Festival started in Cannes – with Spike Lee (64) as the first black jury president in the history of the festival. The director (“Da 5 Bloods”) should already chair the jury that will decide on the award of the Golden Palm in 2020, but the competition was canceled due to the corona pandemic.
In 1986 Spike Lee presented his debut “She’s Gotta Have It” in Cannes, and in 1989 he competed with his breakthrough film “Do the Right Thing”. At the press conference for the start of the film festival, Lee Chaz Ebert (68), lawyer and widow of the American film critic Pope Roger Ebert, who died in 2013, reminded that many observers in the USA in 1989 were concerned that “Do the Right Thing” could trigger race riots . After all, it is about the murder of a young black man by the police and the resulting riots.
Spike Lee’s answer to the question about the timeliness of “Do the Right Thing” was a bitter reference to the death of George Floyd, who died on May 25, 2020 after a police officer kneeled on his neck for nine minutes: “One should actually believe and hope that more than 30 damn years later blacks are no longer hunted like animals “. Thunderous applause from the press.
What does a diverse jury change?
The 74th Cannes Film Festival made history not only because of the first black jury president, but also with the most female jury of all time. With Mati Diop (39), Mylène Farmer (59), Maggie Gyllenhaal (43), Jessica Hausner (48) and Mélanie Laurent (38), female filmmakers had the majority in the nine-member jury for the first time.
When asked about this fact, the Austrian director Jessica Hausner said: “This reflects the development that society is ready for changes that could actually have happened much earlier”.
Maggie Gyllenhaal played down the development: “I don’t think that a jury with a female majority reacts differently to films,” said the 43-year-old. “I would think it would be good if the question were also put to the men in the jury,” said French director Mati Diop.
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