VIDEO. Interview with Jessica Chastain, president of the jury of the 20th Marrakech International Film Festival

What actress and producer Jessica Chastain is most proud of in her life, “it is to have managed to escape from a family pattern that had lasted for years and years. I am the first in my family to go to college and not have a child at 17.” Raised by single women, she managed to “to break” THE “cycle in the history of (one’s) family”. She remembers “very early” have had “a very precise idea of ​​what (she wanted) to do” and to ensure that “his dignity” in all circumstances. Defender of women’s rights, she did not hesitate to speak out to denounce “unequal treatment” from ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ director Kathryn Bigelow, “in comparison with the directors”. “If someone doesn’t want to work with me because I’m vocal about these things, I don’t care. Because someone else will want to work with me” says Jessica Chastain.

“It is high time that men learned the language of women”

She adds : “Meryl Streep said that when you learn a language, you dream in that language. That’s when you know you have it under control. Women have learned the language of men. And we dream in the language of men, because it is everywhere, in our media, our films. And it is high time that men learn the language of women. I believe that the more inclusiveness there is in the writing, in the process of creating a film, the more it will contribute to this learning”. For Jessica Chastain, art, and more specifically cinema, have the power to awaken consciences. “A film should be like a seed that is planted and which transforms you, alters your flow of beliefs, and changes what your life has been up to that point. I believe that every work of art should provoke” concludes the American actress and producer.