Payal Kapadia joins Cannes 2025 jury alongside Halle Berry, Jeremy Strong and more

Payal Kapadia joins Cannes 2025 jury alongside Halle Berry, Jeremy Strong and more
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia, fresh off her Grand Prix win at Cannes 2024 for All We Imagine As Light, has been named a jury member for the 78th Cannes Film Festival. The panel for 2025 features a global mix of actors, filmmakers, and authors, with acclaimed French actress Juliette Binoche presiding as jury president.

Joining Kapadia are Oscar-winner Halle Berry, The Apprentice star Jeremy Strong, and South Korean auteur Hong Sangsoo. Italian actor Alba Rohrwacher, Congolese director Dieudo Hamadi, French-Moroccan author Leïla Slimani, and Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas complete the panel.

Kapadia and Strong both had a strong showing at Cannes last year. Strong starred in Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice, portraying political fixer Roy Cohn, while Kapadia’s debut fiction feature All We Imagine As Lightsecured the festival’s Grand Prize.

Berry, a Cannes newcomer, holds an historic place in Hollywood as the first African-American woman to win a Best Actress Oscar for Monster’s Ball. She later directed Bruised and co-produced Never Let Go. Meanwhile, Sangsoo is a Cannes veteran, with multiple films like Woman Is the Future of Man and In Another Country shown in Competition and others featured in Un Certain Regard.

Rohrwacher, a familiar name at Cannes, has starred in The Wonders, Happy as Lazzaro, and La Chimera. Hamadi brought his documentary Downstream to Kinshasa to Cannes in 2020, while Reygadas, a Best Director winner for Post Tenebras Lux, is currently working on his next film Wake of Umbra.

Slimani, a Prix Goncourt-winning novelist, entered the film world through her novel Lullaby, which was adapted into a thriller in 2019.

This year’s jury will determine the recipient of the coveted Palme d’Or from a lineup of 21 films. The 2025 edition promises a strong Hollywood presence, with films like Lynne Ramsay’s Die, My Love starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest with Denzel Washington, and Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme among the highlights.

The Cannes Film Festival runs from May 13 to May 24, 2025. French actor Laurent Lafitte will host the opening and closing ceremonies. Meanwhile, Hollywood legend Robert De Niro will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award and host a special masterclass for attendees on May 14.

The winners will be revealed during the festival’s closing ceremony on May 24.