Cannes: Brie Larson, Paul Dano, Julia Ducournau on Competition Jury, Pixar’s ‘Elemental’ to Close Festival

The Batman and The Fabelmans star Paul Dano, Titane-directing Palme d’Or winner Julia Ducournau, I Am Not a Witch breakout filmmaker Rungano Nyoni, and Captain Marvel herself, Brie Larson will help make up the superstar competition jury for this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Together with French actor Denis Ménochet, of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and Ari Aster’s Beau is Afraid; Argentinian director Damián Szifron (Wild Tales, To Catch a Killer); Afghani-born, French-based filmmaker Atig Ranimi (Earth and Ashes, The Patience Stone); and Moroccan director Maryam Touzani (The Blue Caftan, Adam), they will join jury president Ruben Östlund, director of last year’s Cannes winner The Triangle of Sadness, in judging the Palme d’Or winners at the 76th Cannes International Film Festival.

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Together, the jury will screen the 21 films picked for Cannes competition this year —among them Todd Haynes’ May December, Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, and The Old Oak from fellow two-time Palme winner Ken Loach — and pick this year’s winners, presenting the 2023 Palme d’Or at the closing ceremony on May 27.

Disney Pixar animated feature Elemental, from The Good Dinosaur director Peter Sohn, will close the festival, screening after the awards ceremony.

Most of the jury have close ties with Cannes. Ducournau presented her first short, 2011’s Junior, on the Croisette, following up with Critics’ Week entry Raw in 2016, only to win the Palme d’Or in 2021 with the taboo-smashing Titane. Dano walked the Cannes red carpet for Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth in 2015 and Bong Joon Ho’s Okja in 2018, the same year he screened his directorial debut, Wildlife, in Cannes’ Critics’ Week. Nyoni’s debut I Am Not A Witch had its world premiere in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight sidebar back in 2017.

Ménochet’s performance in the opening scene of Inglourious Basterds, in Cannes competition in 2009, made him an international star. He’s since been back to Cannes with Rebecca Zlotowski’s Un Certain Regard entry Grand Central in 2013, Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch in 2021, and Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s The Realm last year. Both of Touzani’s features as a director, Adam (2019), and The Blue Caftan (2022), were picked for Un Certain Regard and she co-wrote, with director Nabil Ayouch, 2021 competition title Casablanca Beats.

2023 jury president Östlund is in the very elite club of two-time Palme d’Or winners, having claimed Cannes’ top prize both for The Triangle of Sadness last year and for The Square in 2017. Pretty much Östlund’s entire career has played out against a Cannes backdrop, with 2008 sophomore effort Involuntary screening in Un Certain Regard, 2011 feature Play premiering in Directors’ Fortnight, and international breakthrough Force Majeure bowing in Un Certain Regard in 2014.

The 2023 Cannes Film Festival runs May 16-27.

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