Editor

Word from the Jury President Of Cannes 2005, May 11-22

Being President of the Jury is a great occasion to pay tribute to cinema and the profession of filmmaker. I like paying attention to all identities and their expression, to seize reality from many different perspectives.

I feel like the head of a troop and I will take care that the Jury is able to express its point of view and present its vision of cinema. We will receive the films attentively and then discuss them as freely as possible. Cinema gives a sense of collaboration, of work accomplished collectively.

Each film is the expression of a personal vision of reality.
I have always considered my own films to be the expression of an art, but also an entertainment as cinema is first and foremost a means to connect people and things.
On the location of Life is a Miracle, in the middle of the mountains, I built a village: Kustendorf. Anyone who wants to make films, concerts, paintings or ceramics is able to spend some time there. I feel that the Festival de Cannes is the same, an international village that is devoted to sharing, dedicated to cinematographic and personal encounters. The spectators always prove to be greedy, curious and demanding.

My dream is for this place to be open to cultural diversity, to all the arts, and for it to weave a close, rich tapestry of film and music. These two worlds fit together perfectly, each stimulating and enriching the other. My creative approach is the same whether I am shooting a film or playing on stage: it is a question of structuring a material. This is why music is in fact visualised before it is played. As for cinema, for me it is the art of fusion par excellence. And although I currently spend a lot of time travelling the world giving concerts, because I like immediacy, the headiness of a "single take", I remain fundamentally a filmmaker.