Juries

Model, singer, muse, actress, film-maker and director, Arielle Dombasle was born in Connecticut, USA, but grew up in Mexico. Arielle Dombasle has worked with many directors, including Eric Rohmer, Raoul Ruiz, Werner Schroeter, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Roman Polanski and John Malkovich. A figure of auteur and underground cinema, she became a popular figure when she appeared in Un Indien dans la Ville, Miami Vice or Alibi.com 2; or when she performed in the music hall, at the Crazy Horse or at the Opéra Comique with Jérôme Savary. Her pop, rock and lyrical albums have won her three gold discs and a double platinum disc, and she has given numerous concerts around the world. It was at the age of 22, with Chassé-Croisé, that she made her first film. This was followed by Les Pyramides Bleues, La Traversée du Désir and Opium, in which she combined her two passions: cinema and music. With Alien Crystal Palace, she directed a fantastic, gothic, rock melodrama. In her latest film, Les Secrets de la Princesse de Cadignan, she remained faithful to her imagination but returned to a classical style by adapting a short story from Honoré de Balzac’s La Comédie Humaine.

Picture : Jeff Manzetti . H&K

Stanislas Merhar, born on 23 January 1971 in Paris, is a French actor.

At the age of 25, he made his film debut under the direction of Anne Fontaine in Nettoyage à Sec. This first performance won him the César for Best New Actor. He has worked with directors including Manuel de Oliveira, Jean-Claude Brisseau, Chantal Akerman, Michel Deville, Benoît Jacquot and Philippe Garrel.

His theatre experience includes Florian Zeller’s L’Autre in 2007 and Amanda Sthers’ Le Lien in 2012. Stanislas recently played one of the heroes in Olivier Marchal’s film Bronx, released on Netflix, and one of the main characters in the spy series Liaison, directed by Stephen Hopkins, due for release in 2023 on the Apple TV+ platform.

Picture : Christophe Brachet

Phoebe Campbell is a rising British actor who has already made their mark. A recent graduate of the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), Campbell co-founded the award-winning physical theatre company Spies Like Us Theatre with five friends early in their career. Their innovative work debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe, leading to three years of sold-out shows and an international tour to Hong Kong.

Since graduating, Campbell’s talent has been recognized with a Black British Theatre Award for Best Non-Binary Performer in a Play, for their standout performance as Cecily in The Importance of Being Earnest. They continued to impress on the West End with their role as Susannah in the critically acclaimed Hamnet, before starring in Kendall Fever’s new play Alma Mater at the Almeida Theatre.

Campbell’s screen work has also garnered attention. They received a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the British Short Film Awards for their role in the short Two Fold. In addition to their theatre and film accomplishments, Campbell is set to begin filming their third season of HBO’s Golden Globe-winning House of the Dragon, where they portray Lady Rhaena Targaryen.

Picture : Phil Sharp

Oliver Jackson-Cohen’s recent film credits include Frances O’Connor’s directorial debut Emily opposite Emma Mackey; Regency-era romantic comedy Mr. Malcom’s List alongside Sope Dirisu; the title role in Universal/Blumhouse’s The Invisible Man opposite Elisabeth Moss and directed by Leigh Whannell; lead of the independent action thriller Jackdaw and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Academy Award-nominated The Lost Daughter with Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley.

Soon to be seen on television, starring in the second season of Apple’s Surface opposite Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Other credits include Amazon’s Wilderness; critically acclaimed Netflix anthologies The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor from horror auteur Mike Flanagan; BBC Drama, Man in an Orange Shirt from best-selling author Patrick Gale and Australian limited series The Secret River opposite Sarah Snook.

Picture: Marteen de Boer

Julie Depardieu began her audiovisual career with Josée Dayan, but it was a few years later that she was revealed in Claude Miller’s La Petite Lili. She won two César awards for her role: Best Supporting Actor and Best Emerging Actor. Again with Claude Miller, she won a third César: Best Supporting Actress for Un secret in 2008.

Now one of the most prominent film actresses of her generation, she has moved from family drama to romantic comedy to social thriller. As of 2018, she plays the medical examiner in the series Alexandra Ehle.

She has also appeared in plays by major directors such as Michel Fau and Salomé Lelouch, for which she has been nominated for several Molières. In 2021, she starred in Zaï zaï zaï zaï by François Desagnat, and in 2023 in Les secrets de la princesse de Cadignan, adapted from Balzac’s novel of the same name, directed by Arielle Dombasle.

A lover of classical music, she directed Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffman and, in 2024, The Magic Flute (Une petite flûte) adapted for children. For several years, she was a music columnist on France Musique. She regularly takes part in musical readings at various concerts and festivals.

Picture : Gérard Giaume

Colm Bairéad was born in Dublin and raised bilingually in both the Irish and English language. He developed a fascination with film at a young age, which was cultivated by his father who introduced him to silent cinema, early Hollywood musicals and 40s noir. Following an adolescence experimenting in the production of short films, Colm studied film at the Dublin Institute of Technology. His first commissioned short film after college was Mac an Athar (His Father’s Son), a semi-autobiographical film about an Irish-speaking family in Dublin, which enjoyed success on the international festival circuit. In 2012, Colm received a distinction from the Screen Directors’ Guild of Ireland for his “outstanding work as a director in the Irish language”. In 2022, Colm was the recipient of the Aer Lingus Discovery Award and the Screen Ireland-IFTA Rising Star Award. Colm wrote and directed the critically–acclaimed Irish-language film, An Cailín Ciúin (The Quiet Girl), his narrative feature film debut. The film was nominated for two BAFTAs (Adapted Screenplay & Film Not in the English Language) and secured an Academy Award nomination for International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards in 2023. It was the first time in the history of the Academy Awards that Ireland was represented in this category.

Picture : DR

Charlotte Colbert received a BIFA nomination for her film She Will, which she wrote and directed. The film won the Best First Feature award at the Locarno International Film Festival and was the New York Times’ Critic’s Choice. She also wrote and directed the 2016 short The Silent Man, starring Cillian Murphy, Sophie Kennedy Clark, and Ben Miller; as well as the animated 2011 short The Girl with Liquid Eyes. Charlotte is the founder of the Popcorn Group who have produced She Will, the BBC comedy short Leading Lady Parts (2018), the biographical drama Daliland (2022), and the stage production of Fleabag. As an artist, her latest exhibition Dreamland Sirens ran during Frieze London last October and touched on themes of feminine utopias and uterine imagery. Her previous artworks have been exhibited at the V&A, Montpellier Contemporain, Somerset House, Basel Art Fair, and Istanbul Art Fair.

Picture : Alex Bramall

Of Italian-Scandinavian origin, Alba Gaïa Bellugi began her career very early, appearing on screen for the first time at the age of 10 in François Ozon’s film Le temps qu’il reste. She then starred on a series of films, including La Robe du soir by Myriam Aziza, Intouchable in 2011, in which she played François Cluzet’s cheeky teenager, Thérèse Desqueyroux by Claude Miller, Aimer boire et manger by Alain Resnais, Inéxorable by Fabrice Du Welz, and La Récréation de Juillet by Pablo Cotten and Joseph Rozé.

She studied for 3 years at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff.

She has also appeared in a number of TV series, including Le bureau des Légendes, Into the Night, 3 x Manon and Manon 20 ans. Her performance, as moving as ever, won her the Best Actress award for Manon 20 at the Festival des créations télévisuelles in Luchon.

She recently starred in Fabrice du Welz’s Maldoror, presented out of competition at the Venice Film Festival 2024.

Picture : Kris Dewitte