The 77th Cannes film festival ended and the American film Anora by Sean Baker won this year’s Palme d’Or.
Anora is Sean Baker’s last film, after The Florida Project And Red Rocketwhich also premiered at Cannes.
The jury, chaired by actress-director and former mumblecore muse Greta Gerwig, selected Anora among 22 films in competition this year – a particularly eclectic and dynamic selection. The prizes awarded this year also reflect the diversity of these films.
Baker dedicated his Palme to “all sex workers – past, present and future”. This is a kinetic New York comedy that shares the chaotic energy of Uncut Gems Safdie brothers – a modern fairy tale at the Pretty Woman which doubles as a cookie-cutter tragedy about those whom society chooses to marginalize and whom it dooms to failure. The film brought attention to its star Mikey Madison, and it’s a deserved award for such a joyous and deceptively dark film.
It should also be mentioned thatAnora was bought by the American studio NEON, which won the Palme d’Or five times in a row after Parasite, Titanium, Triangle of Sadness And Anatomy of a Fall. Since the agreements were concluded before the festival, the victory ofAnora once again makes them the official Palme d’Or whisperers.
Read our full Anora review (English).
See the full list of winners below.
The Grand Prize, the second in importance, was awarded to All We Imagine As Light, the captivating film by Payal Kapadia. This film, which arrived late on the screens, and devoted to the bonds between three women from Mumbai of different ages, is the first Indian film in competition at Cannes for 30 years, the last being Swaham by Shaji Karun in 1994.
French director Jacques Audiard achieved great success this year with his film Emilia Pérez which received two awards – a rarity at Cannes, where films usually only get one award.
Emilia Pérez won both the jury prize and the female performance prize, awarded to all the actors in this Spanish-language musical: Zoë Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez and the other actors. Karla Sofía Gascón becomes the first transgender actress to win an acting award at Cannes; she dedicated her award to the transgender community.
Audiard had already won the Palme d’Or in 2015 for Dheepan, and these two awards are well deserved. The jury’s decision announced by Lily Gladstone said the film celebrated “sisterhood harmony”.
Read our review of Emilia Pérez (English).
The prize for best director, presented by the great Wim Wenders, was awarded to the Portuguese Miguel Gomes, for his poetic dream Grand Tour, which tells the story of a British civil servant who flees his fiancée by jumping from one Asian country to another. She tries to find him. It is difficult to get on the wavelength of Grand Tourbut patience pays off, as the film mixes black and white sequences with contemporary anthropological scenes, and culminates in a surprising and moving way.
This year, the jury created a special prize to reward Mohammad Rasoulof for his film The seed of the sacred fig. This Iranian film was considered one of the favorites for the Palme d’Or and received the most enthusiastic reactions from the participants. Rasoulof’s special honor was greeted with the longest standing ovation, at 15 minutes, at the Théâtre Lumière, where the director mentioned his cast and crew who are detained in Iran, those “who remain under the surveillance of the Iranian totalitarian regime , who is holding my people hostage.” The director also mentioned musician Toomaj Salehi, sentenced to death in Iran for supporting nationwide protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini.
Read our full review of The Seed of the Sacred Fig (English).
Jesse Plemons won best actor for his triple role in the anthology film Kinds of Kindness by Yorgos Lanthimos. Unfortunately, the actor was not present.
As we noted in our review: “The acting is brilliant, with Plemons stealing the show, particularly in the first two segments. Growing visibly thinner with each chapter, he embodies pathos, insecurity and menace, and makes it all seem like a walk in the park It’s as if he’s been working with Lánthimos his whole life – and that may still be the case, since he and Stone have been confirmed. to star in Lánthimos’ next film, Bugonia“.
Read our full Kinds of Kindness review.
The best screenplay, presented by French actor Laurent Lafitte (who made a ChatGPT gag, at the expense of the AI platform, to better celebrate the profession of screenwriter), was awarded to The Substance by French director Coralie Fargeat. The director thanked lead actress Demi Moore and stressed how proud she was of the result of their collaboration.
This film, which many predicted would win a bigger prize at the ceremony, stands out in this year’s competition for its wild and bloody nature.
In our review, we wrote: “By showing how the entertainment industry pushes women to extremes to remain employable, Fargeat explores society’s impossible beauty standards, the way some medical industries use their fetishization of youth for profit, as well as the internalized hatred that arises from systemic misogyny. The violence of disappearance in the eyes of society and the self-loathing that arises from the internalization of this external trauma can only be expressed in this way. just as vicious.”
Read our full review of The Substance.
Overall, a deserved record, with few major upsets or surprises, and a standing ovation for George Lucas, who this year received an honorary Palme – courtesy of another titan of the seventh art, Francis Ford Coppola.
The full list of winners:
– Palme d’Or : Anora (Sean Baker)
– Grand Prize: All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia)
– Jury prize: Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard)
– Special jury prize: The seed of the sacred fig (Mohammad Rasoulof)
– Best director: Miguel Gomes (Grand Tour)
– Best actress: Ensemble by Emilia Pérez (Zoé Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez and cast)
– Best actor : Jesse Plemons (Kinds of Kindness)
– Best scenario: The Substance (Coralie Fargeat)
Other prices:
– Golden Camera: Armand (Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel)
– Special Mention of the Caméra d’Or: Mongrel (Chiang Wei Liang and You Qiao Yin)
– Palme d’Or for short film: The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent (Nebojša Slijepcevic)
– Special mention short film: Bad For A Moment (Daniel Soares)
Click here to access all Cannes coverage from Euronews Culture (in English), including news, reviews, videos and interviews.
Stay tuned to Euronews Culture for a full report on the winning films and key takeaways from this year’s 77th edition.
