Juries

Catherine Frot, Jury President

© Quaisse

As comfortable on stage as she is on screen, and winner of two Césars and 2 Molières, Catherine Frot has proved over the years that she is an actress to be reckoned with. Her strength? Skilfully switching between dramatic and comic roles. From the annoying mistress in The Dinner Game to the religious mother in Albert Dupontel’s The Villain, not forgetting the terrifying Folcoche in Vipère au poing, she loves to change roles and, above all, to be in good company. Catherine Frot began her career in the theatre in the late 1970s. At the age of 21, she co-founded the Compagnie du Chapeau Rouge with Pierre Pradinas and Yann Collette, where she met Jean-Pierre Darroussin. In the 80s, she turned to film and television. She became famous for the play Family Resemblances, in which she played Yolande, known as Yoyo, the precious but not very clever sister-in-law. In 1995, she won a Molière for her performance, soon followed by a César for Best Supporting Actress, in the film adaptation by Klapisch. In 2016, she repeated the exploit, winning a Molière the same year for Fleur de Cactus and a César for Marguerite, in which she played a woman fully convinced of her ‘talent’ as a singer.

Her British side can be admired as in the role of Prudence Beresford, the detective created by Agatha Christie, in Pascal Thomas’s trilogy: Mon petit doigt m’a dit (2005), Crime is our Business (2008), and Associés contre le crime… (2012).

She will be on tour from January to June 2024 at the theatre in Quand l’enfant paraît, a comedy by André Roussin.

It is an honour for the Dinard British Film Festival to entrust the presidency of the jury for this 34th edition to Catherine Frot.

Alice Isaaz

© Eric Guillemain

After making her television debut in 2011, Alice Isaaz moved into film in 2013 with The Gilded Cage. But it was the following year that really revealed her to the public with Kim Chapiron’s sultry La Crème de la crème and then Les Yeux jaunes des crocodiles, in which she co-starred with Julie Depardieu, Emmanuelle Béart and Patrick Bruel, a film for which she also won the Revelation Award at the Cabourg Film Festival. In 2015, she made the César Revelations list, and again in 2017.

After a notable performance in Paul Verhoeven’s Elle and the romantic comedy Rosalie Blum, she played the lead in Espèces menacées by Gilles Bourdos. Her next films in 2019 are The Mystery of Henri Pick and Play. Alice Isaaz likes to change roles, moving from comedy to period films, thrillers and westerns, as long as she “plays characters who are far from her”. In 2023 she starred in Apaches with Niels Schneider and Le Prix du passage. She has also made appearances on television, notably on Netflix with Notre-Dame, la part du feu (2022), and soon on Canal+ with the legal drama 66-5.

Her next film, Vivants, is being screened out of competition at the Venice Film Festival. She has also directed a short film for the Nikon Film Festival.

Amelia Gething

© FAYE THOMAS

Rising star Amelia Gething is an actress, writer and creator.

Amelia co-created and starred in her BBC series The Amelia Gething Complex.

She played Anne Bronte in Frances O’Connor’s feature film Emily (Hitchcock d’Or last year at the festival) and can be seen in the upcoming Sky series Mary and George alongside Julianne Moore and Nick Galitzine. Other credits include The Spanish Princess (Starz) and Girl at the River.

Jonathan Zaccaï

© Sylvia Galmot

Jonathan Zaccaï, born in Belgium, began his career in advertising, with a number of commercials broadcast in the UK, before moving into film in 1991 with La Révolte des enfants. In 2000 he starred in Petite Chérie by Anne Villaceque. The actor, who initially wanted to be a director, saw his career take off in 2004 thanks to his role alongside Agnès Jaoui and Karin Viard in The Role of Her Life and as the living dead in Robin Campillo’s The Returned. The following year he was directed by Jacques Audiard in the thriller The Beat that my Heart Skipped and by Anne Fontaine in In His Hands.

Alongside auteur films, he has appeared in several blockbusters, including Remi, Nobody’s Boy (2018), Sink or Swim (2018), the American film Robin Hood (2010) directed by Ridley Scott, and more recently Downton Abbey 2.

In 2011, he was awarded the Magritte for Best Actor for the film Private Lessons. He also works extensively on television, where he is best known for his role in the hit series The Bureau. Jonathan Zaccaï also turned his hand to directing with the satirical film JC comme Jésus Christ in 2011, and published a novel in 2021, Ma femme écrit.

Destiny Ekaragha

© Droits réservés

Destiny is a writer and director who recently directed episodes for Kindred for FX created by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Demascus for AMC with Grand Via producing, Ted Lasso for Apple, and Fellow Travelers for Showtime, created by Ron Nyswaner with Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey attached to star.

Prior to this she directed episodes 5-8 of season 2 of The End of the F**ing World for Netflix, as well as on Y The Last Man for FX and Paper Girls for HBO MAX/Plan B. The End Of The F***ing World season 2 took home the BAFTA for best Drama series.

Nolwenn Leroy

© Muriel Leroy

Nolwenn Leroy grew up in Finistère, Brittany, and won the second edition of Star Academy in 2002. Her first album, Nolwenn, produced by Pascal Obispo, was a great success.

In 2004, she was awarded the title of Révélation Féminine Francophone at the NRJ Music Awards. As a songwriter, she co-wrote her second album Histoires Naturelles with Laurent Voulzy, which went platinum. She then collaborated with the Faroese artist Teitur to write the album Le Cheshire Cat et moi, a more confidential project which was certified Gold Record. Nostalgic for her Breton childhood, she then decided to pay tribute to the Celtic lands with the album Bretonne, which sold over one and a half million copies in France and around the world, and quickly became a double Diamond Record. The same year, she was nominated at the Victoires de la Musique awards in the Best Female Artist category. She then released Ô filles de l’eau, also certified platinum. This was followed by Gemme, an album of love and motherhood, with a precious stone heart as its symbol. Then came Folk, an album of cover versions paying tribute to this musical genre she loves so much. Nolwenn toured extensively and also voiced two animated films, Les 5 Légendes, with Gaspard Ulliel, and Tom Moore’s Oscar-nominated Le Chant de la Mer, for which she wrote and sang the theme songs. Her latest album, La Cavale, was written and composed by Benjamin Biolay.

She then appeared in an episode of the successful series Capitaine Marleau by Josée Dayan, on France 2. In 2024, she will star in the mini-series Brocéliande on TF1.

Thierry Godard

© Christophe Navarre

Trained by Jacqueline Duc, who introduced him to classic texts, then by Robert Cordier, where he immersed himself in the techniques of The Actors StudioActors Studio, and then at the Studio Pygmalion, Thierry had his first experience of acting on stage with authors such as Beckett, Duras, Büchner, Shakespeare, Molière, Dubillard, Marivaux, Courteline and Strindberg, and also spent time with the Dijon street theatre company Les 26 000 Couverts.

But he was soon drawn to the television screen, where he remained for the next 15 years, starting with the hit series Spiral for Canal Plus, followed by 7 seasons of Un village français for France Télévisions. This was followed by a number of roles, including in some outstanding made for television films such as La Disparition by Jean Xavier de Lestrade, Les Complices by Christian Vincent, the collection Les Dames by Alexis Lecaye and Palace Beach Hôtel by Philippe Venault.

It was Philippe Lioret who got him started in the cinema with Welcome, followed by Anything For Her by Fred Cavayé, and more recently Juillet Août and Le Monde d’Hier by Diastème, La Sainte Famille by Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Sans Toi by Sophie Guillemin and La Gravité by Cédric Ido; but he hasn’t left the small screen either, appearing in the series Germinal by David Hourrègue, Oussekine by Antoine Chevrolier, Cœurs Noirs directed by Ziad Doueiri for Amazon Prime, and made for television films including La Dernière Reine de Tahiti by Adeline Darraux, Un destin inattendu by Sonia Rolland and L’école des espions by Elsa Bennett, for which he has just finished filming.

On the international front, Thierry appears in season 2 of the Spanish and Japanese mini-series The Head, broadcast on Canal Plus, as well as Andor, an American series based on the Star Wars universe.