In short, the festival hasn’t even begun but from an ideological, social-political perspective the fix is already in, more or less. Greta Gerwig + Lily Gladstone + Hirokazu Kore-Eda (Monster, Broker, Shoplifters) will presumably fill the role of the jury’s urgent humanist crusaders…the Batman + Robin + Commissioner Gordon social-inequity problem solvers…do the right thing, ”holy fruit salad!”, etc.
The only jurors I feel a strong cinematic kinship with are J.A. Bayona (The Orphanage, Society of the Snow) and Nadine Labaki (Capernaum). With much chagrin HE admits to never having seen Omar Sy’s standout performance in The Untouchables…my bad. Ebru Ceylan is the embedded screenwriting collaborator of her husband, director Nuri-Bilge Ceylan (Winter Sleep, About Dry Grasses).
