She's about to preside over the jury of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. At 40, the American filmmaker Greta Gerwig is one of cinema's pre-eminent personalities, having directed three films, written a dozen screenplays and played several memorable roles. When she was not yet a household name, a photograph accompanied the very first mention of her name in Le Monde on November 23, 2009. Gerwig played a secondary role in the French TV film Une aventure new-­yorkaise (A NY Thing), directed by Olivier Lécot and starring Jonathan Zaccaï and Fanny Valette.

The following year, as part of his critique of the Berlin Film Festival, Thomas Sotinel reviewed Noah Baumbach's Greenberg, a "sweet but never bitter" comedy in which Gerwig played one of the lead roles. Sotinel compared the actress to Kate Winslet, describing her as "stupefying and juvenile." The culture journalist underlined the 26-year-old's "impressive CV" and her new role as a "muse" of "mumblecore," a trend in American low-budget cinema characterized by actors' extensive improvisations.

Thanks to her discerning choice of roles, Gerwig became a figure of American independent cinema in the early 2010s. "She's the kind of actress who naturally captures the spirit of their times, imposes a new way of being in the world, creates a singular fragrance around them whose alchemy grabs you all suddenly, seduces you, converts you..." praised Isabelle Regnier, on July 3, 2013, for the release of Baumbach's Frances Ha, which she saw as the "film of a generation" – a movie in which an entire youth could recognize itself in the trials and tribulations of a down-and-out dancer living in New York and Paris.

The same day, an article written by Sotinel on the duo formed by Baumbach and Gerwig pointed out that the acclaimed actress was also the co-writer of this black-and-white adventure. The culture journalist described the two artists' working relationship, which inaugurated a new model: "Unlike her elder Annie Hall, Frances Ha is not the idealized representation of a woman loved by an artist, but a common creation that started with the screenplay." Their film, which drew comparisons with the early successes of the French New Wave in the late 1950s, proved that it was possible to escape the film industry's constraints and create original works. Always on the lookout for new opportunities, Gerwig made no secret of her desire to get behind the camera.

While people already talked about "Greta Gerwig films," which Regnier called a "genre in its own right" in April 2016, the actress-writer became a director and released, in 2018, Lady Bird, inspired directly by her own experiences. In February 2018, a long profile by Maroussia Dubreuil detailed the career of this "tightrope walker" of American cinema and fan of author Joan Didion, who, like her, hails from Sacramento, California. Moving to New York at the age of 19, she took on a series of odd jobs and met a group of young, penniless filmmakers described as the heirs of John Cassavetes: Josh and Benny Safdie, Alex Ross Perry and Andrew Bujalski. Together, and with Baumbach, her life and work partner, they defined "mumblecore," their own film genre.

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