The Swedish Ruben Ostlund has become the new king of the Cannes festival by receiving his second Palme d’Or for Triangle of sadness, a satire on the cult of money and beauty that shook the Cannes festival on the day of its screening with scenes of vomiting at sea. Close, the second feature film by Belgian director Lukas Dhont, who was one of the favorites to win the Palme d’Or with a powerful work that vindicates friendship and tenderness between men, starring two incredible thirteen-year-old boys, won the Grand Jury Prize exaequo with Stars at noon, in which Claire Denis takes Margaret Qualley on a journey as a journalist in a dangerous Nicaragua at the height of the electoral season.
South Korean Park Chan-wook, winner of the Grand Jury Prize with ‘Old Boy’ in 2003, was competing for the fourth time at Cannes and won applause as best director for his sweeping Decision to leave, a romantic police thriller with a dose of humor and visually extraordinary about the decision to leave. Le otto montagne, the story of friendship between two men over 30 years directed by Charlotte Vandermeersch and Felix Van Groeningen, and Eo, by veteran Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski, with a donkey as the protagonist in an allegation against animal abuse and against human stupidity, they took exactly the Jury Prize.
On the occasion of the 75th anniversary, a special award was given to the Dardenne brothers for Tori and Lokita. Belgian filmmakers, regulars and winners of the French competition, could not leave empty-handed this year with the tragic story of friendship around a teenager and a child who arrive alone in Belgium from Africa.
Noomi Rapace presented the award for Best Female Performance to Iran’s Tsar Amir Ebrahimi for her role as a Tehran journalist who risks her life investigating a serial killer of prostitutes in Ali Abassi’s Holy Spider. “I have come a long way to be on this stage. There was humiliation and darkness, but there was cinema,” a visibly moved Amir said, praising the director for confronting all those things that cannot be done in Iranian cinema. “It practically saved me. life, and I know it will save lives again.”
South Korean Song Kang-ho, star of Parasites, Bong Joon-ho’s film that won the Palme d’Or in 2019, won the best male performance by surprise for his tender baby trafficker in Broker, by Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda. In this category, the names of the French Benoit Magimel and the Italian Pierfrancesco Favino sounded strong. The award for best screenplay went to Tarik Saleh for Boy from heaven. The filmmaker took a photo of the public to send to his mother to the laughter of the spectators.
The president of the Camera d’Or jury, Rossy de Palma, presented the award to War Pony, the directorial debut of Riley Keough, granddaughter of Elvis Presley, and Gina Gammell.
The Iranian film Leila’s brothers, a drama about a family trying to get out of poverty in a country undermined by international economic sanctions, won the FIPRESCI critics’ award, which valued its ability to portray the microcosm of a dysfunctional patriarchy and to go easily from drama to comedy. The Japanese Broker took the ecumenical.
The Directors’ Fortnight, a parallel and independent section of the contest in which the Spanish film El agua, by Elena López Riera, was competing, awarded the films La montagne and Un beau matin, by French directors Thomas Salvador and Mia Hansen-Løve. Another Spanish filmmaker, Estíbaliz Urresola, was recognized with her short film Cuerdas with the Rails d’Or prize, awarded by members of the Ceux du Rail railway association to short and feature films screened at Critics’ Week, a parallel section of the film competition.
