As this 79th Cannes Film Festival opens under the gaze of the whole world, in this city which has become in the space of a few days, the place where cinema ceases to be only an art to become a conscience, a memory and sometimes even a mirror of our humanity, I take the liberty to address these words to you with respect, with gravity and with this silent admiration that always arouses a responsibility as rare as yours.
The quête de la vérité
For ten days, you will watch works from the four corners of the world and listen to different voices. You will go through stories carried by cultures, pains, hopes and views which sometimes conflict but which all seek, in one way or another, to say something about the human being. In this mission which awaits you, it’s not just about choosing films, or even handing out awards: it’s about discerning what, among all these works, carries within itself a deeper truth, an inner necessity, a rare capacity to touch what is most universal in us.
Cinema is not only entertainment nor a simple aesthetic object; it is a way of questioning our time, of revealing our contradictions, of shedding light on what societies sometimes keep silent. It is also a way of reminding us that behind borders, ideologies and cultural differences always remain the same human fragility which connects us to each other.
You will have to judge the works. Even more, you will have to listen to what they say about the world, what they reveal about our time, what they transmit about solitude, beauty, violence, hope or human dignity. This task requires infinitely more than taste or artistic sensitivity: it requires a form of wisdom, an ability to step back, to go beyond fashions, influences, expectations, in order to remain faithful to what, in art, remains essential: the truth.
“The most difficult task is to think what no one has thought about what everyone sees.”
As Paul RicÅ“ur wrote: “The most difficult task is not to see what no one has seen, but to think what no one has thought about what everyone sees.” This is your mission today: Watch. Watching a film is not just about observing images or analyzing a scene; this means trying to understand what a work reveals about our humanity, what it carries in silence, what it dares to say where sometimes the world looks away. The true critical gaze is not the one that judges quickly, but the one that accepts to let itself be moved internally, to question its certainties in order to reach a deeper understanding of the work and what it seeks to convey.
A huge job
Mr. Park Chan-wook, your cinema has often shown that beauty can be born from human complexity, that contradictions should not be simplified but looked at with lucidity? Your cinema has shown that true art does not always give answers but opens spaces of reflection where everyone can encounter their own conscience. It is precisely this requirement that today gives particular meaning to your presence at the head of this jury.
To all of you, members of the jury, we must say thank you even before the prizes are awarded, because the work that awaits you is immense, often invisible to the public, and yet fundamental. During these ten days, you will bear a responsibility that goes far beyond the framework of the festival itself, because your choices will have a global resonance: they will contribute to bringing out voices, to giving a place to certain works, to recognizing artists who sometimes devote years of their lives to carrying a fragile story right up to the screen The world is watching you, of course, but even more, it expects from you loyalty to certain essential values: honesty of gaze, courage of choice, independence of thought, openness to others, and this rare ability to distinguish what touches you. deeply the human soul of what only momentarily seduces appearances.
Today, it is easy to give in to noise, to trends, to immediate reactions, but it is much more difficult to remain faithful to an inner demand, to this silent intuition which recognizes a sincere work, a necessary work, a work which will cross perhaps time because it contains an element of human truth.
The Cannes Film Festival is not only a celebration of cinema: it is also, in a certain way, a place where our era looks at itself, where it tries to understand its fractures, its fears, its dreams and its hopes. And in this context, your role becomes almost philosophical: you are called not only to reward, but to discern what deserves to remain in the collective memory.
So in these ten days of projection, reflection and deliberation, may your gaze remain free, demanding and profoundly human. May you never forget that behind every film are human beings who have tried, with sincerity, to say something about the world and the human condition. May your choices live up not only to cinema, but also to that part of humanity that art, when it is true, always seeks to save.
