MUMBAI: The 66th Cannes Film Festival has announced that filmmaker Steven Spielberg will head its competition jury.

Spielberg said, "My admiration for the steadfast mission of the Festival to champion the international language of movies is second to none. The most prestigious of its kind, the festival has always established the motion picture as a cross cultural and generational medium."

Festival de Cannes president Gilles Jacob said, "As they say across the Atlantic," said "Steven Spielberg is a Cannes ‘regular‘: Sugarland Express, Color Purple. But it was with E.T. that I screened as a world premiere in ‘82 that ties were made of the type you never forget. Ever since, I‘ve often asked Steven to be Jury President, but he‘s always been shooting a film. So when this year I was told E.T., phone home, I understood and immediately replied: "At last!"

Spielberg, born in Ohio in 1946, has been a film enthusiast from a very young age. The first film he made was Sugarland Express that was selected for the Festival de Cannes in 1974 and won the best screenplay award.

In 1993, Steven Spielberg‘s Jurassic Park beat all records for box-office takings in the US. Famous for his commercial successes, his films also The Color Purple (1986), Empire Of The Sun(1987), Schindler‘s List (1993), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Minority Report (2002), Catch Me If You Can (2002), War Of The Worlds (2005), The Adventure Of Tintin: Secret Of The Unicorn (2011) and his latest Lincoln.