Roschdy Zem, Jury President of the 52^nd Deauville Festival

For more than forty years, Roschdy Zem has nav­i­gat­ed French cin­e­ma with a dis­creet inten­si­ty, impos­ing with each film a sin­gu­lar pres­ence, made of con­tained strength, dis­cre­tion, and truth. A gaze in which gen­tle­ness and unease seem to inter­twine; a voice, grave, that car­ries silences as much as words; an ele­gance that con­sists in nev­er seek­ing to seduce but always to convince.

Dis­cov­ered in the ear­ly 1990s, Roschdy Zem has built a demand­ing body of work, refus­ing well-trod­den paths and obvi­ous­ness. From one role to anoth­er, he com­pos­es a gallery of com­plex men, whose flaws, strug­gles, and con­tra­dic­tions he cap­tures with pre­ci­sion. Under the direc­tion of film­mak­ers with views as sin­gu­lar as Xavier Beau­vois, André Téch­iné, Pierre Jolivet, Arnaud Desplechin, Laeti­tia Mas­son, Louis Gar­rel, Rachid Bouchareb, or Rebec­ca Zlo­tows­ki, he has con­tin­u­al­ly explored the mul­ti­ple facets of his art.

Roschdy Zem is also a direc­tor. Since Mau­vaise Foi, he has direct­ed five oth­er films: Omar m’a tuer, Body­builder, Choco­lat, Per­sona non gra­ta, and Les Miens. He is build­ing a per­son­al body of work atten­tive to the invis­i­ble, to thwart­ed des­tinies, to ques­tions of trans­mis­sion and iden­ti­ty. A pro­found­ly human­ist cin­e­ma that looks at human beings before dis­course and prefers nuance to certainties.

Crowned with the César award for Best Actor for Oh Mer­cy! by Arnaud Desplechin, Roschdy Zem has nev­er stopped expand­ing his artis­tic ter­ri­to­ry. Actor, direc­tor, screen­writer, he belongs to that fam­i­ly of cre­ators who con­sid­er cin­e­ma as a space of freedom.

A demand­ing crafts­man and major fig­ure of con­tem­po­rary French cin­e­ma, he builds a pop­u­lar body of work with­out com­pro­mise, com­mit­ted with­out dog­ma­tism, and pro­found­ly human.

It is with immense pride that the Deauville Fes­ti­val wel­comes Roschdy Zem as Jury Pres­i­dent of its 52^nd edition.