The Cannes Fest Directors Fortnight has a new artistic director, Paolo Moretti, beginning the 2019 edition.
He replaces current director Edouard Waintrop, who has headed the sidebar since 2011 and will oversee his last edition this coming May.
Since 2014, Moretti has been the artistic director of La Roche-sur-Yon Film Festival in western France, while also running Le Concorde arthouse cinema, which is located in the same town.
Before that, he was the deputy director of Venice’s Orizzonti sidebar and a programmer for the Rome and FIDMarseille festivals.
Moretti was appointed by the Societe de Realisateurs de Films (SRF), an association of French filmmakers that created the Directors’ Fortnight back in 1968 in protest against the Cannes official competition. The SRF is currently co-presided by directors Yann Gonzalez (You and the Night), Celine Sciamma (Girlhood) and Rebecca Zlotowski (Planetarium).
Under Waintrop’s regime, Directors Fortnight has premiered prominent arthouse and genre titles. The list includes Jeremy Saulnier’s Blue Ruin and Green Room, animation hit Ernest and Celestine, Paolo Larrain’s No and Neruda, Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash (after Sundance bow), Ciro Guerra’s Embrace of the Serpent and Deniz Gamze Erguven’s Mustang.
Last year, the Fortnight bowed Chloe Zhao’s The Rider and Sean Baker’s The Florida Project.
This year’s Director’s Fortnight runs May 9-19.
