jury

Sean Penn was visibly writhing as he stared down hundreds of his least favorite species—photographers and journalists—at the press conference introducing the Cannes jury this afternoon. Penn is president of the feature competition jury at Cannes. I was curious how a jury president handles personal biases, especially when this particular jury president won an Oscar for starring in a film by a director whose film he’ll now have to judge for the Palme D’Or—Clint Eastwood. An indelicate question to be sure, but it’s seems only fair to ask, and so I did, as delicately as I could manage.