Last year, Sean Penn, as president of the Cannes jury, laid out a set of principles that would determine who took away the big prize at the end of the May film festival: “One way or another, when we select the Palme d'Or winner, I think we are going to feel very confident that the film-maker who made the film is very aware of the times in which he or she lives.” The highly politicized actor and star of Milk certainly enjoyed the spotlight as jury boss on the Croisette (he endorsed Barack Obama and then brutally criticized him, complained about France’s smoking ban, then chainsmoked through the rest of the press conference), and apparently the Cannes staff appreciated the column inches that were generated as a result. Accordingly, for this year’s fest they have selected yet another brilliant but occasionally eccentric and outspoken thesp to head the Palme D’Or selection committee: Isabelle Huppert. The French actress, who is no stranger to success at Cannes with two Best Actress awards won there for Claude Chabrol’s Violette and Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacher, has previously been a jury member at the festival and in a press release said that the festival is “the open door to all the new ideas of the world,” and declared herself to be “thrilled at the idea of being a privileged spectator in it.”