Barbie director Greta Gerwig named Cannes Festival jury president

Barbie director Greta Gerwig has been named jury president for next year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Gerwig, who is the first American female director to be named president, will preside over the jury of the 77th Cannes Film Festival in May.

At 40, Gerwig is also the youngest person to take on that role since Sophia Loren, who headed the Cannes jury in 1966 aged 31, the festival noted in a statement.

“I’m overwhelmed, enthusiastic and touched with humility,” Gerwig said. “I can’t wait to discover what voyages await us.”

She described Cannes as “the pinnacle of what the universal language of movies can be”.

Festival officials, too, were excited, about their choice for jury president for the May 14-25 event on the French Riviera, a premiere film extravaganza.

“This is an obvious choice, since Greta Gerwig so audaciously embodies the renewal of world cinema, for which Cannes is each year both the forerunner and the sounding board,” said festival president Iris Knobloch and general delegate Thierry Fremaux.

Gerwig also marks “an era that is breaking down barriers and mixing genres, and thereby elevating the values of intelligence and humanism”, they added.

One other American woman has led the Cannes jury: Olivia de Havilland in 1965. Unlike Gerwig, the actress never directed movies.

Gerwig began her career as an actress before moving into writing movies, then co-directing and finally flying solo in the director’s chair, notably with Lady Bird in 2017 — nominated for five Academy Awards, including best director, followed by Little Women, then Barbie, released last July.

There, she transformed the famous Barbie doll into a living young woman, raucously exploring sexism and women’s independence.

“An international cultural phenomenon, Barbie is the biggest success of the year and has made Greta Gerwig the most bankable female film director in history,” the statement by the Cannes Festival said.

Swedish filmmaker Ruben Ostlund headed last year’s festival.

The rest of the jury has yet to be announced. Films competing in the 2024 film festival are to be unveiled in mid-April.