So after Arundhati Roy, Aishwarya Rai and Nandita Das, Sharmila will be the next Indian to serve on the Cannes jury in recent years.
But India's no-show in the Festival's official sections continues since 2002.
Maybe an Indian judge will make it up for that deficit again.
Her kids Saif Ali Khan and Soha Ali Khan have reasons to cheer up too as even though they aren't going there, their mother is
The actress who currently heads the Central Board of Film Certification is the grand-daughter of poet Rabindranath Tagore. She became an actress in 1959 when Satyajit Ray cast her as Apu's ill fated bride in "Apur Sansar' (The World of Apu) while she was still a teenager.
She got commercial success in the 70s with "Kashmir Ki Kali', "Waqt', "Anupama', "An Evening in Paris' and "Aradhana' etc.
She was the first Indian actress to appear in a bikini on-screen in "An Evening in Paris' which was considered a daring move in the industry at that time.
She joins the likes of French actress, Isabelle Huppert who heads this year's festival jury as well as Asia Argento (Italy), Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey), Lee Chang-Dong (South Korea), James Gray (US), Hanif Kureishi (UK), Shu Qi (Taiwan) and Robin Wright Penn (US).