Stepping Onto the Cannes Red Carpet, Leïla Slimani Follows in Toni Morrison’s Footsteps
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Leïla Slimani is no stranger to an awards jury. After serving as chair of the International Booker Prize in 2023 and as a judge at the Marrakech International Film Festival that same year, the prize-winning author and journalist is stepping into her biggest—and glitziest—role yet, as a jury member at the 78th Cannes Film Festival. Not that you’ll catch her doing it in stilettos. In the days leading up to the opening ceremony, Slimani feels happy, a bit intimidated—but above all, focused.
“When I’m judging a book, I know exactly how it’s done. But I don’t know how it’s done for a movie, so there is something more mysterious and more magical for me,” the French-Moroccan writer tells Vogue, priming herself to help select the winner of the festival’s top prize, the famed Palme d’Or. Slimani is one of nine judges—hailing from Korea to India, Italy, and beyond, and among them stars including Halle Berry and Jeremy Strong—led by renowned French actress Juliette Binoche. “I’m ready to receive any kind of emotion and to listen to my fellow jurists,” she says. “When you watch a movie with the eye of a Moroccan woman or a Congolese director, it’s maybe not the same as someone who comes from Hollywood, so it’s going to be very interesting to confront those different points of view.”
This is Leïla Slimani’s childhood dream come true, having long ago fantasized about becoming an actor, before taking the literary world by storm with her 2016 novel Chanson douce (known in the U.S. as The Perfect Nanny), inspired by a real-life news story about a murderous Manhattan nanny. The book earned a then-34-year-old Slimani the prestigious Prix Goncourt in France. While she admits her early acting dreams were, perhaps, insincere, her fascination with cinema is unwavering. Cannes in particular holds a special place in her heart, as the festival introduced her to diverse Arab talents such as the Egyptian director Youssef Chahine. She still remembers watching the ensemble cast of Rachid Bouchareb’s film about North African soldiers, Indigènes (Days of Glory), take to the stage in 2006 to receive the Best Actor award. “I was so moved. I was crying, because for the first time, the memory of my own family was recognized and existed in a movie,” she recalls. “I’m very happy now to belong to a little family of Arab people in Cannes who also try to defend the voice of a region which is suffering very much right now.”
Simani herself hasn’t just been dipping her toes in the film industry—she’s plunged into a clutch of recent projects for screens big and small. Chanson douce was adapted into a movie in 2019, and since then, HBO has been developing an English version as a limited series with Maya Erskine, who will star opposite Nicole Kidman. Slimani is also working on the Paramount+ adaptation of Le Pays des Autres (The Country of Others), her ambitious trilogy for which the third volume was published in France earlier this year. In each of Slimani’s creative undertakings, she centers the complex perspectives of all kinds of women—“Some are good, some are bad, some are perverts, some are saints”—making her inclusion on this year’s female-majority judging panel particularly fitting.
And while Slimani has graced red carpets before, appearing at Cannes is akin to stepping onto the world stage. She doesn’t hold back on expressing her excitement about this part of the job in the lead-up to the grand opening ceremony. “I heard that Toni Morrison, who was on the jury 20 years ago, said that she liked it very much to have beautiful dresses and makeup and all that,” she says, “so if Toni Morrison could say that, I think that I could say it also.”
It was only natural for Slimani to turn to Dior for the occasion, the same fashion house that has been dressing her since she was a jurist back at the Deauville American Film Festival in 2018. Because feeling at ease is the writer’s sartorial M.O., collaborating with a team that knows her and her taste so well for this latest look—along with several others throughout the festival—was the perfect place to start. “If you are in a very beautiful dress and you don t feel comfortable, you re not going to look elegant,” Slimani opines. Next came the inspiration: Old Hollywood meets French femininity, tailored to the personality—and the petite frame—of the author. The result was a statuesque silhouette with billowing, cape-like sleeves in an off-white shade designed to dazzle against the deep red of the carpet. To complete the look, she opted for cream-colored platform shoes, also by Dior, and jewels from Cartier’s iconic Panthère collection.
“I’m not a big international actress, so I don’t want to try to act like one,” Slimani says, although the performance aspect of getting ready is the part of the process she delights in the most. Growing up, she and her three sisters raided their mother’s closet to play dress-up, which she calls jouer aux dames, or ‘playing as women.’ “Even now, I’m 45-years-old, and when I am in my hotel room and [hair and makeup arrive], I think about my sisters. I feel like I’m eight-years-old and I’m going to jouer aux dames.”
Below, she invites Vogue to play along too.
Photography by (c) Pierre Mouton.1/10“I have to find a good balance between these high-profile events and a certain discretion, and Dior, they’ve always understood that,” Slimani says of her off-white crepe silk gown.
Photography by (c) Pierre Mouton.2/10“Because this dress is very sculptural, I need to have high heels, but I can’t wear stilettos because it hurts too much and I’m too afraid of falling! I’ve worn this collection of platform shoes many times so I know it’ll be ok.”