Personnel: “Barbie” director – the most important office in Cannes

“Barbie” was worth it for Greta! The film adaptation of the toy myth, supposedly designed as a “feminist satire,” by industry giant Mattel, which also invested a lot of money in the film, grossed more than a billion US dollars at the box office this year. Greta Gerwig is responsible for this. Coming from a Catholic California family, she moved to New York City to study, where she wrote plays and met the right people. In 2006, Gerwig began appearing as an actress in independent films such as “Frances Ha” (2012), and later she also began directing herself. Gerwig was named the queen of “mumblecore”: This is how journalists describe a genre of films with a low budget and partly improvised dialogues, which mostly revolve around young people who like to focus on themselves and don’t go through life too confidently. One could speak of a white middle class phenomenon.

In any case, after around a decade and a half of career in front of and behind the camera, Gerwig is now called to the decision-making table: in 2024 she will be jury chairwoman at the Cannes Film Festival. It consists largely of filmmakers, i.e. not professional reviewers, and is allowed to award several prizes; the most important is the Golden Palm. Nobody in this position has ever been so young – Gerwig is 40 – and a director from the USA. She is the successor to Ruben Östlund, a Swede whose films offer a rather toothless criticism of capitalism and the art market and were therefore well received in the cultural scene. Gerwig’s first two feature films, “Ladybird” and “Little Women,” were nowhere near as successful as “Barbie,” but they were definitely worth seeing. Hopefully the powerful office doesn’t lead them completely astray artistically.

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