One year on, what is your assessment of the 2025 edition?
Cannes has become a veritable label of trust. A film’s selection at the Festival can change its destiny: it facilitates its encounter with the public, speeds up its international circulation, and often opens the way to major awards such as the Oscars and Golden Globes. All the more so if the film has won an award at Cannes, which is also a label of quality. This was the case last year with the formidable The Secret Agent, and also Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, which won the Jury Prize, then the Oscar for Best International Film. Cannes is a maker of destinies.
Under the new Oscar rules, the Palme d’Or is now automatically eligible for the Oscar for Best International Film. Doesn’t this risk influencing the jury’s choice, favoring certain countries for example?
The only compass in these discussions is artistic excellence. It’s a fine recognition of the importance of festivals on the part of the Oscars.
What about the Academy’s decision to ban films using generative artificial intelligence in the acting and screenplay categories?
It’s important to have rules, because technology is evolving at breakneck speed. From a more global point of view, any rule established today may also be obsolete tomorrow. Who knows what artificial intelligence will be able to do in the near future? What has worked very well in the past is a case-by-case approach. If we have a question, we discuss it together with General Delegate Thierry Frémaux, present the case to the board of directors, and decide together how to approach the situation.
Could the festival legislate on this too in the future?
The film industry has gone through many technological revolutions. As with every new innovation, artificial intelligence is likely to change the way films are produced. However, it must remain a tool. It can also be an opportunity: producing at lower cost, shifting repetitive tasks to focus on more creative ones. But it can never replace human creativity, human emotion, human experience.
After George Lucas, Peter Jackson will receive the Honorary Palme d’Or this year. Do these awards reflect a desire to honor more mainstream cinema?
We want to honor personalities who have had a lasting impact on the seventh art. Peter Jackson has clearly pushed the boundaries of cinema. He is proof that technology is useless if it is not guided by creative genius. I was lucky enough to be able to distribute his work when I worked at Warner. So, obviously, I’m a big fan, and I remember those days very well. The decision to award him an Honorary Palme d’Or was a collective one.
How are you preparing for the filming of the new season of The White Lotus on the banks of the Festival?
It won’t have any impact on the running of the event. Personally, I’m very happy that the festival has been chosen as the setting, that it’s at the heart of the plot, because it shows that it’s part of the collective imagination and that it makes people dream. It’s great for our reputation, and that of the region. I can’t wait to see this season of The White Lotus.