Actress Meg Ryan Adds Glitz to Cannes Film Panel
PARIS (Reuters) – Sassy Hollywood actress Meg Ryan and Bollywood pin-up Aishwarya Rai will add some sparkle to the jury of the 56th Cannes film festival when it opens next month, the official jury list showed on Wednesday.
The panel will be headed by French director Patrice Chereau, who won two Cannes awards in 1994 for “Queen Margot,” and includes Bosnian director Danis Tanovic whose war film “No Man’s Land” took best screenplay at Cannes in 2001 and won an Oscar last year.
This year’s festival opens on May 14 with a remake of the 1952 film “Fanfan La Tulipe,” a swashbuckling 18th century drama starring Penelope Cruz, and will close on May 25 when the judges announce the top Palme d’Or prize and other awards.
The list of films competing will be announced on April 23.
French actress Karin Viard and actor Jean Rochefort will sit on the jury alongside American Ryan, of “When Harry met Sally” fame, and India’s Rai, a former Miss World who brought Bollywood to Cannes last year with the glittering musical “Devdas.”
Outside France, film and theater director Chereau is known as screenwriter of the 1998 blockbuster “The Truman Show.”
Also on the jury are Italian writer Erri de Luca, “Sex, Lies and Videotape” director Steven Soderbergh, who won the coveted Palme d’Or for that film, and Chinese director Jiang Wen, who won the Grand Jury prize in 2000 for “Devils on the Doorstep.”
Last year’s Palme d’Or (Golden Palm) went to Franco-Polish director Roman Polanski for his Holocaust film “The Pianist,” setting him on the way for an Oscar in March.
This year, the festival will get an Italian flavor from sultry actress and former model Monica Bellucci who will be mistress of ceremonies for the two weeks.
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