As the 79th Cannes Film Festival opens under the gaze of the world, in this city that has become, for a few days, the place where cinema stops being just an art and becomes a conscience, a memory and sometimes even a mirror of our humanity, I take the liberty of addressing these words to you with respect, with seriousness and with the silent admiration that always arises from a responsibility as rare as yours.
The Quest for Truth
For ten days, you will watch works from all corners of the world and listen to different voices. You will experience stories carried by cultures, pains, hopes, and perspectives that sometimes oppose each other but all seek, in one way or another, to say something about being human. In this mission that awaits you, it is not just about choosing films, or even giving awards: it is about discerning what, among all these works, carries a deeper truth, an inner necessity, a rare ability to touch what is most universal in us.
Cinema is not just entertainment or a mere aesthetic object; it is a way to question our era, to reveal our contradictions, to shed light on what societies sometimes silence. It is also a way to remind us that behind borders, ideologies, and cultural differences, there always remains that fragile human soul that connects us to one another.
You will have to judge the works. More than that, you will have to listen to what they say about the world, what they reveal about our time, what they convey about solitude, beauty, violence, hope, or human dignity. This task requires much more than taste or artistic sensitivity: it demands a form of wisdom, an ability to step back, to transcend trends, 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 Ricoeur 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.” That is your mission today: to Watch. Watching a film is not just about observing images or analyzing staging; it means trying to understand what a work reveals about our humanity, what it carries silently, what it dares to say where sometimes the world looks away. The true critical gaze is not one that judges quickly, but one that is willing to be inwardly displaced, to question its certainties in order to achieve a deeper understanding of the work and what it seeks to convey.
A tremendous job
Mr. Park Chan-wook, your cinema has often shown that beauty can arise from human complexity, that contradictions should not be simplified but viewed with lucidity. Your cinema has shown that true art does not always provide answers but opens up spaces of reflection where each can encounter their own conscience. It is precisely this requirement that gives a special meaning to your presence at the head of this jury.
To all of you, jury members, it is necessary to say thank you before the awards are even given, 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 beyond the framework of the festival itself, as 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 dedicate years of their lives to bring a fragile narrative to the screen. The world is watching you, indeed, but more importantly, it expects from you a fidelity to essential values: the honesty of the gaze, the courage of choice, independence of thought, openness to others, and the rare ability to distinguish what deeply touches the human soul from what only momentarily deceives appearances.
Today, it is easy to give in to noise, trends, immediate reactions, but it is much more difficult to remain faithful to an inner demand, to that silent intuition that recognizes a sincere work, a necessary work, a work that may endure time because it contains a part of human truth.
The Cannes Film Festival is not just 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 upon not only to reward, but to discern what deserves to remain in the collective memory.
So, in these ten days of screening, 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, sincerely, to say something about the world and the human condition. May your choices be up to the level not only of cinema but also of that part of humanity that art, when true, always seeks to save.
