This past Saturday, the 77th edition of the Festival de Cannes had its awards ceremony. The winners were later announced following the exhibition of the 22 titles in the competition from May 14-24. The jury was presided over by American director/screenwriter/actor Greta Gerwig. The other members of the jury included Turkish screenwriter Ebru Ceylan, American actor Lily Gladstone, French actor Eva Green, Lebanese director and screenwriter Nadine Labaki, Spanish director/producer/screenwriter Juan Antonio Bayona, Italian actor Pierfrancesco Favino, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-Eda, and French actor/producer Omar Sy.
After 13 years, an American director once again took home the Palme d’Or, the festival’s top prize, with Sean Baker winning for his latest film, Anora. The film marks the fifth Palme d’Or in a row for American distributor NEON. They distributed past winners Parasite (2019), Titane (2021), Triangle of Sadness (2022), and last year’s Anatomy of a Fall.
NEON also triumphed with the Iranian highly political film The Seed of the Sacred Fig, winning the Special Prize. Writer/director Mohammad Rausolof received an emotional reception, earning a nearly 15-minute standing ovation, according to Deadline. It also led to the traditional Screen Daily jury grid with a 3.4 score out of 4.
Indian director Payal Kapadia won the Grand Prix award for All We Imagine as Light. Janus Films and Sideshow picked the film for distribution in the U.S. Portuguese director Miguel Gomes was awarded the Best Director Prize for Grand Tour. The film has yet to be picked up by a distributor.
2017’s You Were Never Really Here was the last film to win two prizes in competition, with Joaquin Phoenix winning for Best Actor and Lynne Ramsay winning for Best Screenplay, but Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez equaled the feat, winning the Jury Prize (the fourth highest prize awarded by the festival) while Selena Gomez, Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, and Adriana Paz combined to win the award for Best Actress. Most notably, Gascón is the first transgender performer to win an acting prize at Cannes. Netflix is near closing a significant competitive deal for Emilia Perez, reportedly worth $12 million dollars for the U.S. and U.K. rights.
Jesse Plemons won the Best Actor prize for Yorgos Lanthimos’ Kinds of Kindness, which Searchlight Pictures will release on June 21st, 2024.
One of the sensations of the festival, Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, won Best Screenplay, which MUBI will release on September 20th, 2024.
Daria D’Antonio, the cinematographer of Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope, won the CST Award for Best Artist-Technician. Hu Guan’s Black Dog won the Un Certain Regard award. Halfdan Ullman Tondel won the Camera d’Or for Armand.
Check the complete list of official selection winners:
Competition Awards:
- Palm d’Or: Anora – Sean Baker (NEON)
- Grand Prix: All We Imagine as Light – Payal Kapadia (Janus Films/Sideshow)
- Best Director: Grand Tour – Miguel Gomes
- Jury Prize: Emília Perez – Jacques Audiard (Netflix)
- Special Prize: The Seed of the Sacred Fig – Mohammad Rasoulof (NEON)
- Best Actress: Emília Perez – Selena Gomes, Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña & Adriana Paz (Netflix)
- Best Actor: Kinds of Kindness – Jesse Plemons (Searchlight Pictures)
- CST Award for Technical Award: Parthenope – Daria D’Antonio (A24)
In Competition – Short Films:
- Palme d’Or Short Film: The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent – Nebojsa Slipepcevic
- Short Film Special Distinction: Bad for a Moment – Daniel Soares
Un Certain Regard Awards:
- Un Certain Regard Prize: Black Dog – Hu Guan
- Un Certain Regard – Jury’s Prize: L’Historie de Souleymane – Boris Lojkine
- Un Certain Regard – Best Director: On Becoming a Guinea Fow – Rungano Nyoni Ex-Aequo (A24)/ The Damned – Roberto Minervini Ex-Aequo
- Un Certain Regard – Best Actress: The Shameless – Anasuya Sengupta
- Un Certain Regard – Best Actor: L’Histoire de Souleymane – Abou Sangare
- Youth Award: Holy Cow – Louise Courvoisier
- Un Certain Regard – Special Mention: Norah – Tawfik Alzaidi
Caméra d’Or Award:
- Caméra d’Or: Armand, Halfdan Ullmann Tondel
- Caméra d’Or Special Distinction: Mongrel, Wei Liang Chiang & You Qiao Yin
poster credit: © Shochiku Co., Ltd. – Rhapsody in August by Akira Kurosawa (1991) / Graphic creation © Hartland Villa
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Brazilian film writer. He is also a producer and executive producer for Zariah Filmes. Member of the International Film Society Critics Association (IFSCA), International Documentary Association (IDA), and Gotham and Media Film Institute.
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