The full jury for the main competition at the 79th Cannes Film Festival has been announced, with eight members joining previously confirmed president Park Chan-wook. Actors Demi Moore, Stellan Skarsgård, Ruth Negga and Isaach De Bankolé will sit alongside writer-directors Chloé Zhao, Diego Céspedes and Laura Wandel, as well as screenwriter Paul Laverty. The festival runs from May 12 to 23 on the French Riviera.
The jury will oversee the 22-film in-competition line-up, which includes new works from Pedro Almodóvar, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Asghar Farhadi, James Gray, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Cristian Mungiu, Na Hong-jin, László Nemes, Marie Kreutzer, Pawel Pawlikowski, Léa Mysius and Ira Sachs. The festival opens out of competition with Pierre Salvadori's The Electric Kiss.
Several jurors have strong ties to the festival. Moore appeared in 2024's The Substance, which earned a best-picture Oscar nomination, while Skarsgård starred in last year's Cannes Grand Prix winner Sentimental Value. Zhao won best picture and directing Oscars for Nomadland, and her latest film, Hamnet, is nominated for an Oscar this year.
Negga received an Oscar nomination for Loving, which played in competition in 2016. De Bankolé has appeared in festival favourites such as Claire Denis's Chocolat and Jim Jarmusch's Ghost Dog. Wandel has had three films at Cannes, including Playground and last year's Adam's Sake, which opened Critics' Week. Céspedes won the Un Certain Regard Prize last year for The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo.
Laverty, known for his collaboration with Ken Loach, has written 14 films for the director, 11 of which have screened at Cannes. Two have won the Palme d'Or – The Wind That Shakes the Barley and I, Daniel Blake – and he received the screenplay prize for Sweet Sixteen in 2002.
