Steven Spielberg Will Be Jury President at Cannes Film Festival

Cannes Film Festival Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg may have gone home empty-handed at the Academy Awards on Sunday night, but on Thursday he was bestowed another prestigious cinematic honor (besides the fact that, you know, he gets to be Steven Spielberg every day of his life): he will serve as president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in May, its organizers said.

Mr. Spielberg, an Oscar winner for “Schindler’s List” and “Saving Private Ryan” and most recently a nominee for “Lincoln,” has shown his motion pictures at Cannes including “The Sugarland Express,” which won the festival’s best screenplay award in 1974; also, his blockbuster “E.T. the Exra Terrestrial” had its world premiere there as the festival’s closing film in 1982. “Ever since,” Gilles Jacob, the president of the Cannes festival, said in a statement, “I’ve often asked Steven to be Jury President, but he’s always been shooting a film. So when this year I was told ‘E.T., phone home,’ I understood and immediately replied: ‘At last!’”

Thierry Frémaux, the festival’s “general delegate,” said that Mr. Spielberg had accepted the offer to head the festival’s jury president “in principle two years ago,” and was able to fulfill the commitment this year, when the festival will run May 15 through 26.

Mr. Spielberg, who succeeds previous jury presidents including Robert De Niro and Nanni Moretti, said in a statement: “My admiration for the steadfast mission of the Festival to champion the international language of movies is second to none. The most prestigious of its kind, the festival has always established the motion picture as a cross cu! ltural and generational medium.”