Arnaud Desplechin

Ancient student of L'Idhec.

[on the Cannes Film Festival jury 2016] I already served on a major jury in Venice [2010], but obviously Cannes is a lot bigger than them. It was really great for me to stop the prep of my film and to see what worldwide cinema is about today, to have a picture of what film is today - all these films that come from many countries - and to see them. The experience of seeing the films and to discuss them... it was fascinating. It was really fascinating. I learned a lot from George Miller. He's so great; he's a master. I was so happy to meet László Nemes at last, when I loved his film so much. If I had to say one thing that I learned from this experience, it would be the fact that the two main prizes we gave in Cannes... one was to a certain form of nakedness, of simplicity, which is the Ken Loach movie [Io, Daniel Blake (2016)]. When cinema is not hiding behind anything - a naked art. On the other hand, we gave the second prize to the Xavier Dolan [ È solo la fine del mondo (2016)] because of his craft, because the film is so well-done, so impressive - the way it's shot, the way it's lit, the sets, everything. The art is so brilliant. So we gave one award to nakedness and the other one to the pure craft and obvious talent of Xavier Dolan. It was wonderful to give these two prizes to two films which are so surprising in two different perspectives within cinema. Ask cinema to be simple or ask it to be complex; if it breaks your heart, it's good. The film, the English film, was heartbreaking because of its simplicity, and the Xavier Dolan was heartbreaking because of its complexity, and it was great to reward these two films. [July 2016]