SimplyAbuDhabi XLVII

Our 3 Questions for Juliette Binoche Simply Abu Dhabi: Sincere congratulations on being named the jury president for the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. You have had a strong association with Cannes since 1985. Can you tell us about the significance of this appointment for you as an artist? Juliette Binoche: It’s a great honour. Cannes was really my birth as an actress as Rendez-Vous was selected in Cannes when I was just 21, and I discovered how this big film reunion can change someone’s life in a few days. Being a president of a jury is really caring for each member to be heard and finding a possible harmony between our differences. You’ve had a long career in cinema but also enjoyed success with the HBO series The Staircase and the Chanel-Dior drama The New Look on Apple TV. Might you do more televised series? I enjoyed doing them, but I am an old-fashioned lover of the form of films – television doesn’t replace a film for me! It is important for me to be picky withmy projects – I need to be changed by a film and provoked by a film to do it. You are reuniting with your English Patient co-star, Ralph Fiennes, in The Return , based onThe Odyssey, in which you portray Penelope to his Odysseus. What was it like to work together again? Ralph has been a friend since The English Patient and even before then, when we did Wuthering Heights together. I feel we are kind of like family. I was very moved to see Ralph and act with him again because we hadn’t been on a set together for a long time. Simply Abu Dhabi | 137