by InTrieste
At the 79th Festival de Cannes, French actor Leïla Bekhti will preside over the Un Certain Regard jury, a section of the festival dedicated to emerging voices and distinctive author-driven cinema.
She will be joined by four jury members drawn from different film traditions and regions: Senegalese producer Angèle Diabang, Lebanese composer Khaled Mouzanar, Trieste-born filmmaker Laura Samani, and French director Thomas Cailley.
The group will be responsible for selecting the winners of Un Certain Regard, a parallel competition within Cannes that has long served as a platform for formally inventive debuts and unconventional storytelling. The section often highlights filmmakers at the beginning of their international careers, and its awards can significantly shape future distribution and festival trajectories.
This year’s jury continues a recent pattern of assembling artists and producers from diverse cinematic backgrounds, reflecting the section’s emphasis on global perspectives and emerging authorship. Last year, the jury was presided over by Chilean filmmaker Diego Céspedes, following British director Molly Manning Walker’s tenure the year before.
The 2025 edition of the section was marked by the success of Céspedes’ debut feature The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo, which won the Un Certain Regard Prize and drew attention for its stylized visual language and thematic focus on marginalised communities.
For Italy, the presence of Laura Samani brings particular attention. Samani, who is from Trieste, has gained recognition in recent years for a filmmaking style rooted in historical reflection and attention to intimate, often overlooked narratives. Her participation in the jury places her among a group of international filmmakers contributing to the selection of new talent at one of cinema’s most closely watched festivals.
Un Certain Regard remains one of Cannes’ most closely followed sections, both for the discovery of new directors and for the way it often signals broader shifts in contemporary arthouse cinema. The jury’s decisions will be announced during the festival’s official awards ceremony later this year.
