The Cannes Film Festival announced Thursday that Greta Gerwig, director of summer blockbuster “Barbie”, will preside over the jury at its 77th edition in May. The 40-year-old Gerwig, also an actor and screenwriter, takes the baton from Sweden’s Ruben Ostlund, whose jury awarded the 2023 Palme d’Or to courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall”. She is the first American woman filmmaker to take on the role, the festival said in a statement. Gerwig’s presence will provide a youthful flair to Cannes, which has not had such a young president since 1966, when it was led by then-31-year-old Sophia Loren. She is also the first woman since actor Cate Blanchett in 2018 to assume the prestigious position, where men remain over-represented. “I love films — I love making them, I love going to them, I love talking about them,” Gerwig said in a statement. “As a cinephile, Cannes has always been the pinnacle of what the universal language of movies can be”. Aside from “Barbie”, a vivid feminist sat...