Baloji and Emmanuelle Béart will oversee this year’s Golden Camera jury at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, organizers said on Tuesday.
Organizers said French actress Béart and director and songwriter Baloji will serve as president of the jury that selects the best first film from across the official selections of the film festival.
“Being a self-taught filmmaker and a filmmaker from the Congolese diaspora, it’s a great honor to be able to witness the vitality of first-time directors, to discover their strong singularities and their inaugural work, which will have a lasting impact on the identity of their filmography,” Baloji said in a statement.
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Béart added in her own statement: “A first film is about the impossibility of doing anything other than delving into the depths of one’s being to find out what we can’t keep quiet about. A deeply moving and terribly free birth: no one is waiting for you yet. We will honor our duty with wonder and respect.”
The Camera d’Or is given to the best first film across the festival’s Official Selection and Un Certain Regard sections, as well as the official sidebars of the Critics’ Week and Directors’ Fortnight. The prize is awarded during the main ceremony on the closing night of the festival.
Last year, the Caméra d’Or was awarded to Pham Thien An for Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell by a jury presided over by French actress Anaïs Demoustier. The Camera d’Or has produced several directors who have become Cannes regulars, including Jim Jarmusch, Pascale Ferran and Naomi Kawase.
Earlier, Greta Gerwig was named as the jury president for the 2024 Cannes International Film Festival. The 77th Cannes Film Festival runs May 14-25, 2024.
