Huppert leads film jury at Cannes

French actress Isabelle Huppert has been appointed as the president of the jury for the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.

The star, whose career spans four decades, succeeds Sean Penn as the head of the panel. The jury selects the winner of the coveted Palme d'Or prize.

Huppert said she was "very glad and very proud" to be part of May's event.

She has twice won the prize for best actress at the festival in the south of France - in 1978 for Violette Noziere and then for The Piano Teacher in 2001.

Fourteen of the films in which she has starred have been entered for competition in Cannes.

Huppert has twice served as a member of the jury and becomes only the fourth woman to head it, in the festival's 62nd year.

"I've had a long relationship with Cannes and this next meeting will definitely seal my love for the festival and thus for global cinema," said the 55-year-old.

The festival's artistic director, Thierry Fremaux, told the AFP agency that her appointment was a tribute "to someone who has put her popularity to the service of artistic cinema, who has worked with young directors and admiring foreign filmmakers".

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