Spielberg to head Cannes Film Festival jury

Director will oversee panel at French event.


Ians March 03, 2013
Festival president Gilles Jacob has spent years trying to get Spielberg on board, but the film-maker had been too busy. PHOTO: FILE

LOS ANGELES: Film-maker Steven Spielberg will head the jury of 66th edition of the Cannes International Film Festival.

The director will oversee the panel at the French event, which will start May 15 and conclude, May 26, reports guardian.co.uk.

Spielberg, whose Sugarland Express and ET premiered at the festival more than 30 years ago, writes, “My admiration for the steadfast mission of the festival to champion the international language of movies is second to none.”

“The most prestigious of its kind, the festival has always established the motion picture as a cross cultural and generational medium,” he adds.

“For over six decades, Cannes has served as a platform for extraordinary films to be discovered and introduced to the world. It is an honour and a privilege to preside over the jury of a festival that proves, again and again, that cinema is the language of the world.”

Spielberg, who takes the reins from Italian writer-director-producer Nanni Moretti, who most recently directed Lincoln, which festival organisers noted as a box office hit in France.

Festival president Gilles Jacob said he has spent years trying to get Spielberg on board, but the film-maker has been too busy to accept the offer.

“Steven Spielberg is a Cannes regular with his movies Sugarland Express and Color Purple, but it was ET that screened as a world premiere in 1982 and resulted in good relations,” he said.

“Ever since, I’ve often asked Steven to be jury president, but he has always been shooting a film. So when this year I was told ‘ET, phone home’, I understood and immediately replied, ‘At last!’.”

Published in The Express Tribune, March 4th, 2013.                   

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