Spike Lee to head jury of 74th Cannes Film Festival

Prevented last year due to the health crisis, the Festival de Cannes inaugurates this new decade with an outstanding President of the Jury, one of the greatest directors of his generation, as well as a screenwriter, actor, editor and producer. For 30 years, the tireless Spike Lee has been an astute chronicler of the questionnings of his time, with a resolutely contemporary approach that’s never without a dash of levity and entertainment.

“Throughout the months of uncertainty we’ve just been through, Spike Lee has never stopped encouraging us. This support is finally coming to fruition and we could not have hoped for a more powerful personality to chart our troubled times“, says Pierre Lescure, President of the Festival. 

“His enthusiasm and passion for cinema has given us a huge boost of energy to prepare the great Festival that everybody has been awaiting for. The party will be great, we simply can’t wait! “says Thierry Frémaux, General Delegate.

From July 6 to 17, 2021 on the Croisette, these 12 summer days will be a celebration of art and creativity, and full of long-awaited reunions. Preparations are in full swing with a large numbers of films are being viewed by the selection committee.The Festival will have the opportunity to outline in more details the 74th edition, in the coming weeks.

The Official Selection and the composition of the Jury will be unveiled in early June. 

Surrounded by the members of his Jury, Spike Lee will award the Palme d’Or at the closing ceremony on Saturday, July 17.

Photo: Spike Lee © V. Hache / AFP

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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