French actress and singer Vanessa Paradis will head up the jury of this year’s socially-distanced Deauville American Film Festival. The event, which runs in the French seaside town Sept. 4-13, will be one of the first film festivals to be held in the post-COVID-19 era.
Paradis will oversee a competition jury that includes her Knife + Heart director Yann Gonzalez, fellow French actors Zita Hanrot (Fatima) and Vincent Lacoste (Sorry Angel), director Bruno Podalydes (The Sweet Escape), producer Sylvie Pialat (Timbuktu), the author Delphine Horvilleur and French rapper Oxmo Puccino. They will pick this year’s Deauville winners, which will be announced Sept. 12.
French screenwriter Rebecca Zlotowski (Grand Central, Dear Prudence) will head up the jury for Deauville’s Revelation jury, which awards the Louis Roederer Foundation Revelation prize.
Among the highlights of Deauville’s 2020 line-up are Kitty Green’s The Assistant and Sean Durkin’s The Nest, both of which premiered in Sundance; Darius Marder’s debut feature, The Sound of Metal; and Love is Love is Love, a trio of connected tales from director Eleanor Coppola. The annual French celebration of U.S. cinema will also screen new films from Alan Ball (Uncle Frank), Kelly Reichardt (First Cow) and Miranda July (Kajillionaire).
Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari, another Sundance title, will open Deauville on Sept. 4. Douglas Attal’s How I Became a Super Hero, a French-language comedy tribute to U.S. superhero films, will close the festival Sept. 12.
Deauville will be one of the first public film festivals held since the coronavirus lockdown was lifted in France and will be watched closely to see the effectiveness of new safety guidelines, including mandatory wearing of masks, social distancing and reduced capacity in the festival cinemas.
