15/06/2021 - Having been a member of the feature-film selection committee for the Cannes parallel section for the last five years, the French critic will take over from Charles Tesson on 1 August 2021

The new Artistic Director of the Cannes Critics' Week, Ava Cahen (© Aurélie Lamachère)

Having been at the helm of the Critics’ Week of the Cannes Film Festival since its 2012 edition, Charles Tesson (read our most recent interview with him) will step down from his role as Artistic Director and pass the baton to Ava Cahen on 1 August this year.

Cahen founded CLAP magazine in 2014 and FrenchMania in 2017, in parallel with the Woody Club, which she created in 2016. She has been a commentator for the TV programme Le Cercle on Canal+ since 2014 and for Une heure en series, a radio show broadcast on France Inter, since 2019. She has published several books, including Woody Allen. Profession Cynique (2015), Cheforama (2017) and Game of Thrones décodé (2019). The youngest selection committee member in the history of the Critics’ Week, she joined the French Union of Film Critics in 2016, at the age of 30. In parallel with her job as a lecturer at the Nanterre Paris X University, Cahen has been a member of the Critics’ Week feature-film selection committee for the last five years.

The 60^th edition of the Critics’ Week (see the news on the selection) will unspool from 7-15 July 2021 as an integral part of the 74^th Cannes Film Festival.

(Translated from French)