Barbie director Greta Gergwig named as head of 2024 Cannes Film Festival jury

Fresh off her first-ever best director nomination at the Golden Globes, Barbie director Greta Gerwig has been named as the Jury President for the upcoming 2024 Cannes International Film Festival.

“A heroine of our modern times, Greta Gerwig shakes up the status quo between a highly codified cinema industry and an era that is demanding greater scrutiny,” Cannes said in its official announcement.

“Yesterday, ambassador of independent American cinema, today at the summit of worldwide box office success, Greta Gerwig manages to combine what was previously judged to be incompatible: Delivering arthouse blockbusters, narrowing the gap between art and industry, exploring contemporary feminist issues with deft as well as depth, and declaring her demanding artistic ambition from within an economic model that she embraces to put to better use.

“Whether acting, writing, or directing, her artistic endeavours have recurrent leitmotifs, such as family upheaval, adolescent rites of passage, fear of loss of social status or the emergence of artistic vocation via characters that are free, sometimes fragile and marginal, but also fierce," said the statement from the festival organiser.

Greta's appointment is historic as she will be the first American female director to preside over the Cannes Jury. She is also the second female director to take over the post in Cannes history first being Jane Campion in 2014. She is the second American woman to hold the post following Olivia de Haviland, who was Cannes’ first female Jury President in 1965.

“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 Cannes Festival President Iris Knobloch and Artistic Director Thierry Frémaux.

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

Despite the praise, this will be the first time Gerwig will walk the Cannes red carpet officially. None of her films as a director have premiered at the French festival.

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Greta has had a great year at the box office with her film Barbie becoming the highest-grossing film of the year. She has also helmed critically acclaimed films like Lady Birdand Little Women.

“I love films – I love making them, I love going to them, I love talking about them,” said Gerwig in a statement.

“As a cinephile, Cannes has always been the pinnacle of what the universal language of movies can be. Being in a place of vulnerability, in a dark theatre filled with strangers, and watching a brand-new film is my favourite place to be. I am stunned, thrilled, and humbled to serve as the Cannes Film Festival Jury president. I cannot wait to see what journeys are in store for all of us!"

Gerwig’s career has taken her in front of and behind the camera, from her start as an actor and screenwriter — alongside starring in, she co-wrote Hannah Takes the Stairs (2007) with Joe Swanberg, and Frances Ha (2012) and Mistress America (2015) with partner Noah Baumbach — before making her first sole directing effort in the breakout hit Lady Bird in 2017.

Her 2023 film Barbie was a mammoth hit at the box office.

The pink-tinged tentpole starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling earned over $1.4 billion and, to date, is owning the awards season.

The 77th Cannes Film Festival runs May 14-25, 2024.