The 78th Festival de Cannes has unveiled its jury line-up, featuring two African creatives: French-Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani and Congolese director, documentarist, and producer Dieudo Hamadi. The 2025 Cannes Film Festival jury will be chaired by French actress Juliette Binoche and will comprise a diverse group of industry professionals.
Leïla Slimani has published several novels, including “Lullaby”, which won the Prix Goncourt in 2016 and the Grand Prix des lectrices Elle in 2017. She is also a French diplomat as the personal representative of the French president Emmanuel Macron to the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie.
Dieudo Hamai’s first short documentary, Ladies in Waiting (Dames en attente), won the Pierre et Yolande Perrault Grant at the Cinéma du Réel film festival in 2010. In 2013, Atalaku won the Joris Ivens Award for Best First Film at the Festival Cinéma du Réel, while his other film, Mama Colonel received the Grand Prix at the same festival. He is currently in post-production on a 6-episode Sci-Fi-Fantasy series, Les âmes errantes de Kinshasa, which he is producing and directing for Canal+.
The main task of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival jury is the awarding of the Palme d’or to one of 21 films in competition. The chosen film, among other winners, will be announced on Saturday, May 24, at the Closing Ceremony, which will be broadcast live by France Télévisions in France and by Brut internationally.
Other jury members include American actress and filmmaker Halle Berry, Indian director and screenwriter Payal Kapadia, Italian actress Alba Rohrwacher, Korean director and screenwriter Hong Sangsoo, Mexican director, screenwriter and producer Carlos Reygadas and American actor Jeremy Strong.
With Leïla Slimani and Dieudo Hamadi on board, this adds to the list of African presence at this year’s Cannes festival as Morad Mostafa’s Aisha Can’t Fly Away, a co-production between Tunisia, Egypt, and Qatar will screen at the festival. The festival will also premiere Tunisian production Promised Sky, directed by Erige Sehiri, and My Father’s Shadow, a Nigerian and UK co-production directed by Akinola Davies Jnr.
South African director Oliver Hermanus will also be present at the Cannes, as he directs the UK-US co-production titled The History of Sound.
Directors’ Fortnight, a parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival overseen by the French Directors Guild, has also selected African projects, including Cameroonian-French director Thomas Ngijol’s Indomptables and Moroccan-French director Robin Campillo’s Enzo.
