The 68th Cannes Film Festival will take place from May 13th to 24th. This year, there will be a new award, L’Œil d’Or (Golden Eye) for Best Documentary across all sections: Official Selection In and Out of Competition, Un Certain Regard, Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week. The driving force behind this new award is the Society civile des auteurs multimédia (SCAM) and its president, Julie Bertuccelli, director of the documentary “La Cour de Babel” (The Court of Babel). They are working in partnership with the Institut national de l’audiovisuel (INA) and with the active support of the Cannes Festival and Thierry Frémaux, the festival’s managing director. SCAM’s press release says “Cinema came out of the documentary. Increasingly present on the big screen, increasingly recognized by critics, increasingly loved by the public, increasingly visible in festivals, these personal ways of looking at the world deserve recognition at Cannes.” This year the award jury will be chaired by the French-Cambodian film-maker Rithy Panh, with French filmmaker Nicolas Philibert, French actress Irene Jacob, Syrian producer Diana El Jeiroudi and the American critic from “Variety”, Scott Foundas. The Œil d’Or comes with €5,000 and will be presented on Saturday, May 23rd at the Palais des Festivals.
Sources: communiqué Scam, leblogdocumentaire.fr et lettreaudiovisuel.com
