7th Cannes Film Festival May 8th – 19th
Benicio del Toro was named best actor at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008 for his role in Che
Los Angeles, CA- Puerto Rican actor Benicio Del Toro (Sicario, Star Wars: The Last Jedi) has been named the president of the Un Certain Regard Jury at the Cannes Film Festival. Del Toro, who will preside over the fate of the Un Certain Regard Jury is not only a film lover but a brilliant actor, entirely devoted to his art. Eight years ago, along with Tim Burton, del Toro and his fellow members of the Jury selected Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul‘s Uncle Boonmee (The One Who Can Recall His Past Lives) as the winner of the Palme d’or.
Del Toro, who in 2001 won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in Traffic, is “an artist who knows no boundaries. He is a great admirer of Jean Vigo and Charlie Chaplin and would have loved to have met Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, Toshiro Mifune or Humphrey Bogart,” said festival organizers. When he was 20 years old, he discovered The 400 Blows and the infinite universe of Fellini, Eisenstein, Bergman, Eustache, Kurosawa… The Naked Island of Kaneto Shindô became his go-to film. In 2008, Del Toro won the best actor award in Cannes for his performance in the title role of Soderbergh’s Che, about Che Guevara, a movie directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Peter Buchman.
The charismatic Del Toro transforms each of his performances into impressive but subtle displays. Despite his apparent insouciance, he throws himself like no other into his roles – his teacher was Stella Adler of the Actors Studio. He is a loyal supporter of independent cinema and has worked with Abel Ferrara (The Funeral, 1996), Julian Schnabel (Basquiat, 1997) and Oliver Stone (Savages, 2012) – he also appears in the 8thepisode of the saga Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017).
As the second competition within the Official Selection, Un Certain Regard will once again feature some twenty original and unique works in terms of themes and aesthetics.
Benicio Del Toro takes over from Uma Thurman, who was president in 2017 of a jury that awarded prizes to Mohammad Rasoulof, Jasmine Trinca, Mathieu Amalric, Taylor Sheridan and Michel Franco.
This year’s Festival de Cannes will take place from Tuesday 8 to Saturday 19 May.
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