Italian director Alice Rohrwacher, whose works “The Wonders,” “Happy as Lazzaro” and “La Chimera” competed in Cannes, will preside over the jury for the Cannes Film Festival‘s Caméra d’Or prize. The award is given to a first work across the official selection as well as in the Critics’ Week and Directors’ Fortnight sections.
“First times are always important and they stay with us for the rest of our lives,” Rohrwacher said in a statement. “Like entering an unfamiliar room, approaching one’s beloved for a first kiss, or landing on a foreign shore. There’s something golden that haloes these moments in our memory. Is that why the most prestigious award for first films is called Caméra d’Or?”
Rohrwacher’s longstanding rapport with Cannes started with her first feature, coming-of-age drama “Heavenly Body” (“Corpo Celeste”), which launched at the Directors’ Fortnight in 2011 and went on to play several major festivals such as Sundance and New York.
Her second feature, “The Wonders,” a look at a young girl growing up on a bee farm, won the Grand Jury Prize in competition in Cannes in 2014. “Happy as Lazzaro,” a time-bending fable about Italy’s transition from a rural society to modernity, tied for the award for best screenplay in 2018.
“La Chimera,” in which “The Crown” star Josh O’Connor plays a young British archeologist who gets involved in an international network of stolen Etruscan artifacts during the 1980s, is considered the third film in a trilogy formed with her two previous features.
As previously announced, Juliette Binoche will preside over the main jury, while Robert De Niro will receive this year’s honorary Palme d’Or. The festival will take place from May 13 to 24.
