Bollywood star Deepika Padukone joins Cannes Film Festival 2022 jury

The nine-member group will help pick winners from 21 titles in contention, including one for the coveted Palme d'Or

Deepika Padukone at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018. Reuters

Deepika Padukone, one of the biggest stars in India, will be a member of this year's main jury at the Cannes Film Festival, set to run from May 17 to 28.

Padukone joins veteran French actor Vincent Lindon as chairman of the jury, as well as British actress and director Rebecca Hall; Swedish actress Noomi Rapace; Italian actress and director Jasmine Trinca; Iranian director Asghar Farhadi; French director Ladj Ly; American director Jeff Nichols; and Norwegian director Joachim Trier.

The group will help pick the winners of the 21 films in contention this year, including one for the coveted Palme d'Or.

Padukone, 36, who recently appeared in the acclaimed film Gehraiyaan, has been attending the festival since 2010 as a L'Oreal ambassador. Lindon co-starred in last year's Palme d'Or winner Titane, directed by Julia Ducournau.

Lindon said he was "extremely proud to be given, amid the upheaval of the many events we are going through in the world, the splendid and heavy task of presiding the jury".

The jury would "strive to take good care of the films of the future which all harbour the same secret hope of courage, loyalty and freedom", he said.

Canadian horror maestro David Cronenberg, US filmmaker James Gray and France's Claire Denis are among the competitors for the Palme d'Or this year.

They are expected to bring a bevy of stars to the red carpet, with Cronenberg's sci-fi/horror crossover Crimes of the Future starring Kristen Stewart, Lea Seydoux and Viggo Mortensen.

Denis returns with a thriller set in Central America — The Stars at Noon — featuring Taron Egerton and Robert Pattinson.

Gray's entry, Armageddon Time, is a tale based on his New York adolescence, featuring Anne Hathaway, Oscar Isaac, Cate Blanchett and Anthony Hopkins.

Tom Cruise will attend the much-delayed world premiere of Top Gun: Maverick, the sequel to his 1986 blockbuster, playing out of competition.

And Tom Hanks will be in town for Elvis, in which he co-stars as the rock 'n' roll star's manager, Colonel Tom Parker, in the latest film from Australian director Baz Luhrmann, who previously lit up Cannes with Moulin Rouge! and Gatsby.

When announcing this year's line-up earlier in April, festival director Thierry Fremaux had already given a nod to the difficult global situation, saying the announcement came "after two years of crisis that we won't recover from quickly, and at a time of sadness and war in Europe."

A Ukrainian film will play out of competition — The Natural History of Destruction — from director Sergei Loznitsa about the destruction of German cities by Allied bombers in the Second World War.

The main competition will also mark the third nomination for Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov. He was unable to attend last year when his film Petrov's Flu was in competition due to an embezzlement conviction that his supporters say was revenge for his anti-authoritarian stance.

He relocated to Germany this year after his travel ban was lifted and returns to Cannes with Tchaikovsky's Wife about the private life of the famous composer.

— Additional reporting by AFP

Scroll through the gallery below for pictures of Deepika Padukone at the Cannes Film Festival over the years: