Italian director and screenwriter Alice Rohrwacher has been named the president of the Jury of the Caméra d’or at the 78th Cannes Film Festival taking place from May 13 to May 24, 2025.

The Caméra d’or award honors a first feature film presented in the Official Selection, at the Critics’ Week or the Directors’ Fortnight. In 2024, the Caméra d’or went to Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel for Armand, which premiered at Un Certain Regard.

“First times are always important and they stay with us for the rest of our lives,” said Alice Rohrwacher. “Like entering an unfamiliar room, approaching one’s beloved for a first kiss, or landing on a foreign shore. There’s something golden that haloes these moments in our memory. Is that why the most prestigious award for first films is called Caméra d’or?”

Her first feature, Heavenly Body (Corpo Celeste) premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight in 2011, and her second feature, The Wonders (Le Meraviglie), was selected to compete at the 2014 Festival de Cannes and won the Grand Prix. Happy as Lazzaro (Lazzaro felice) premiered in Competition in Cannes in 2018, and tied for the award for Best Screenplay. La Chimera, considered by the director as the conclusion of a trilogy formed with her two previous features, was also presented in Competition at the festival in 2023.