Jeremy Strong reflects on his last 11 days as a member of the jury for the Cannes Film Festival competition, comparing it to the process of choosing a new Pope, as illustrated in the film nominated with “Conclave” Oscars.
“I feel immeasurably inspired by what I saw here,” said Strong at a press conference after the jury awarded “It’s just accident” of Jafar Panahi with the Palme d’Or. “It was so invigorating, and this kind of cumulative work count that I will take with me.”
Strong continued: “It was a really wonderful experience, a really connected experience with these people – it’s like a” conclave “with champagne. It’s really great.”
Strong served under the presidency Juliette Binoche with Halle Berry, Payal Kapadia, Hong Sansooo, Alba Rohrwacher, Leïla Slimani, Dieudo Hamadi and Carlos Reygadas. During the meter, the group explained its decision to present the first prize to “it was only an accident”, which follows a group of former prisoners in Iran who must decide whether or not a man they think they are their tortuous guard. The film marked Panahi’s first project since its imprisonment for several months in 2023 for criticizing the Iranian government.
“It is very human and political both because it comes from a complicated country, politically speaking,” said Binoché. “When we watched the film, it really stood out. The film springs from a feeling of resistance, of survival, which is absolutely necessary today. We therefore thought it was important to give this film the paramount price.”
She continued: “Art will always win. What is human will always win. Our creative desire can transform the world.”
Strong sounded to say that the jury “wanted to recognize the films which, in our opinion, were transcendent intrinsically as work”, aligning the way Robert de Niro launched the festival during his opening ceremony by saying that “fascists should fear art”. Speaking of “it was only an accident” and the other films awarded, Strong quoted the playwright Henrik Ibsen.
“Ibsen spoke: ‘Deeply inside, there is a poem in a poem. And when you hear this, when you understand it, you will understand my song,” he said. “And I think that this film and the other films have these poems in the poem that allow us to grasp something ineffable that changed me.”
