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Canada’s Xavier Dolan to serve on the Cannes Film Festival jury

Montreal director Xavier Dolan has been selected to serve on the jury at the 68th annual Cannes Film Festival, festival directors announced today.

The 26-year-old filmmaker will sit on the panel with eight other international filmmakers, including:

– Spanish actress Rossy de Palma
– British actress Sienna Miller
– Mexican director Guillermo del Toro
– American actor Jake Gyllenhaal
– Malian author and composer Rokia Traoré​
– The panel will be led by jury presidents, American sibling filmmakers, Joel and Ethan Coen.

​Together, the jury will vote on which of the festival’s competing films will win which awards, including the coveted Palme d’Or.

The chosen film will be announced at the closing ceremony on Sunday, May 24.

When Dolan premiered his film Mommy at Cannes last year, he received a 13-minute standing ovation before snagging the festival’s prestigious jury prize — an honour he shared with veteran French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard.

This year, Quebec’s Denis Villeneuve is the only Canadian director with a film competing for the Palme d’Or.

His drug-trafficking drama, Sciario, stars Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin and Emily Blunt as members of a government task force trying to take down the brutal head of a Mexican cartel

Sciario is up against against 16 other films, including Todd Haynes’s Carol, Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth, and Gus Van Sant’s The Sea of Trees

Villeneuve says it’s a “massive honour” just to compete.

“It’s a really tough crowd,” the 47-year-old Oscar-nominated filmmaker told CBC. “[But] I believe in myself. It’s a strong film, and I will stand by it no matter what happens.”

Canadian films screening out-of-competition at the festival include Dundas, Ont.’s Andrew Cividino’s drama Sleeping Giant and Hamilton, Ont.’s Charmini Peli Kankanamalage’s 15-minute docudrama called M’al d’archive.

The festival opens May 13 with French director Emmanuelle Bercot’s drama La Tete Haute.