Halle Berry and Jeremy Strong have been appointed to the main competition jury for the 78th Cannes Film Festival, joining previously announced jury president Juliette Binoche. The festival will take place from May 14 to May 24.
The full jury includes Berry, Strong, Payal Kapadia, Alba Rohrwacher, Hong Sangsoo, Leïla Slimani, Dieudo Hamadi, and Carlos Reygadas. They will award the Palme d’Or and other prizes among the 21 films selected for competition. Winners are scheduled to be announced on May 24.
Berry became the first African-American woman to win an Academy Award for Best Actress for Monster’s Ball. Her credits include Jungle Fever, Swordfish, X-Men, Cloud Atlas, and John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. She directed her first film, Bruised, in 2020 and has co-produced several recent projects, including Alexandre Aja’s Never Let Go.
Kapadia won the Grand Prix at Cannes last year with All We Imagine As Light, bringing India back into the festival’s main competition after three decades. Rohrwacher has frequently appeared at Cannes with projects such as The Wonders and La Chimera, often collaborating with her sister, director Alice Rohrwacher.
Slimani, a Moroccan writer, is known for her novel Lullaby, which won the Prix Goncourt and was later adapted into a feature film. Hamadi, a Congolese director, screened Downstream to Kinshasa at Cannes in 2020 and continues to develop projects for television and film.
South Korean director Hong Sangsoo has premiered multiple films at Cannes, including Tale of Cinema and The Day After, and won the Un Certain Regard Prize for Hahaha. Carlos Reygadas, from Mexico, brought his debut feature Japón to Cannes and received prizes for later works including Silent Light and Post Tenebras Lux.
Strong appeared at Cannes in 2024 for The Apprentice, which later earned him nominations at the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, and BAFTA. His earlier screen credits include The Trial of the Chicago 7, Armageddon Time, and Zero Dark Thirty.