Vidya Balan confirmed as jury member at Cannes

Steven Spielberg, Nicole Kidman and Ang Lee will also be part of the panel.

Bollywood actor Vidya Balan has been chosen as the member of the jury panel at the 66th Cannes Film Festival scheduled to take place on May 15.

The talented and critically-acclaimed actor, who is known for her roles in The Dirty Picture, Kahaani and Parineeta, feels honoured to be part of the jury. “It feels great. It’s a big honour for me to be on the jury of the most celebrated film festival in the world,” said Vidya while speaking to India Today. “Especially this year, when Indian cinema completes 100 years, it becomes even more special. I am looking forward to it.”

When asked if she would be biased towards Indian films, Vidya told IANS, “We are churning out better movies by the day, so we definitely deserve to be competing with films from all over the world. There is no scope for partiality and our films don’t need any of us to be partial, I think we deserve to be up there.”



While Vidya couldn’t get any happier, other members of Bollywood seemed equally excited with her selection. “Vidya Balan on Cannes jury...awesome,” tweeted director Anurag Kashyap.

Four Indian films will be screened at Cannes this year and the festival will witness the highest ever presence of Bollywood celebrities. The stars include Amitabh Bachan, Aishwariya Rai, Karan Johar and Nandita Das amongst several others.

Apart from Vidya, the nine-member jury will also include big names such as Hollywood director (and jury president) Steven Spielberg, Oscar-winning actor Nicole Kidman, director Ang Lee, Japanese director Naomi Kawase, British scriptwriter-director-producer Lynne Ramsay, French actor-director Daniel Auteuil, Romanian scriptwriter-director-producer Cristian Mungiu and Austrian actor Christopher Waltz.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 29^th, 2013.                    

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