Amos Gitai to head one of the juries at Cannes Film Festival
Several of Gitai’s films have been shown at Cannes.
By HANNAH BROWNDIRECTOR AMOS GITAI and actress Maisa Adb Elhadi at last year’s Venice International Film Festival. (photo credit: TONY GENTILE/REUTERS)
The 72nd Cannes Film Festival just got underway and this year, Israeli director Amos Gitai will be the president of the jury for the Clapperboard Citizens Cannes award, an award created two years ago that is given to a film that celebrates “secular, universal and humanist values.”Several of Gitai’s films have been shown at Cannes. In 2005, Hanna Laslo won the Best Actress Award at Cannes for her starring role in his film Free Zone. This year, several Israeli films are competing: Dekel Berenson’s Anna (a film set in Ukraine, by an Israeli director); Yona Rozenkier’s Butterflies, in the Short Films Competition; and Yarden Lipshitz Louz’s Rift, from Sapir College in Sderot, in the Cinefondation shorts category.Among the most anticipated movies at the festival this year are: the opening night film, Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die, a zombie comedy starring Bill Murray and Adam Driver; Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, a period film about an actor and his stunt double in 1969, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt; and Dexter Fletcher’s Rocketman, a biopic about Elton John.
