Cannes Winners 2016
Sunday, May 22, 2016 at 4:00PM Despite what was generally regarded as one of the strongest Cannes lineup in many years, George Miller's jury wasn't having the critical consensus. At all. They didn't remotely follow the "buzz" whilst handing out their honors...
Xavier Dolan, Ken Loach, and Jaclyn Jose with their prizes
Live footage of the press room at Cannes after Xavier Dolan's speech and Mel Gibson's entrance. pic.twitter.com/dvRDR8vVpE
— Matthew Eng (@Eng_Matthew) May 22, 2016
Perhaps, after losing the Oscar for MAD MAX, this was all George Miller's roundabout way of saying that awards are bullshit?
— Guy Lodge (@GuyLodge) May 22, 2016
In a shocking turn of events the single most praised film of the festival (Maren Ade's father/daughter comedy Toni Erdmann) went home empty-handed while one of the most critically trashed efforts (Xavier Dolan's It's Only the End of the World) nearly won the Palme, taking home the Grand Jury Prize aka Runner Up. It's yet another reminder that Cannes has a strangely consistent 'get in line!' dictum despite what should prevent that: the ever shifting jury.
Cannes loves Brillante Mendoza but strangely, considering his auteur status, he's never been submitted by The Philippines for the Oscar raceBasically filmmakers work their way up to a Palme d'Or by winning several other prizes first. Andrea Arnold seems to have been blocked at the Jury Prize level though (she's won that before) but Xavier Dolan keeps moving up so he'll be winning the Palme fairly soon. Strange world. But not the End of it, despite the wailing of critics who attended this year.
Competition Jury
Palme D'Or Ken Loach's I, Daniel Blake (UK)
Grand Jury Prize Xavier Dolan's It's Only the End of the World (Canada)
Jury Prize Andrea Arnold's American Honey (UK)
Director (tie) Olivier Assayas for Personal Shopper (France) and Cristian Mungiu for Graduation (Romania)
Best Actress Jaclyn Jose for Ma Rosa (The Philippines)
Best Actor Shahab Hosseini for The Salesman (Iran)
Screenplay Asghar Farhadi, The Salesman (Iran)
Un Certain Regard Jury
Winner Juho Kuosmanen's The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki (Finland)
Jury Prize Kôji Fukada's Harmonium (Japan)
Director Matt Ross for Captain Fantastic (US)
Screenplay Delphine Coulin & Muriel Coulin for The Stopover (France/Greece)
Special Prize Michael Dudok de Wit's The Red Turtle (Japan)
Divines is a female buddy movie and gangster thriller combined
Camera D'or Jury
Camera D'or Houda Benyamina's Divines (France)
Cinéfondation Jury
Winner Or Sinai's Anna (Israel)
2nd Prize Hamid Ahmadi's In the Hills (UK/Iran)
3rd prize Nadja Andrasev's The Noise of Licking (Hungary)
"Dogs" from Romania keeps getting "No Country For Old Men" comparisons
Juries to the Side (Not Officially Affiliated with Cannes but Traditions Nonetheless)
Palm Dog "Nellie" from Jim Jarmusch's Paterson (US)
Ecumenical Jury Xavier Dolan's It's Only the End of the World (Canada)
Queer Palm (Feature): Sébastien Lifshit's Les Vies de Thérèse (France)
Queer Palm (Short): Anna Cazenave-Cambet's Gabber Lover (France)
FIPRESCI (Competition): Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann (Germany)
FIPRESCI (Un Certain Regard): Bogdan Mirica's Dogs (Romania)
FIPRESCI (Directors Fortnight/Critics Week): Julia Ducornau's Raw (France)
Reader Comments (27)
I was watching out for the Best Actress winner, so imagine my surprise with the winner. Who is Jaclyn Jose?
Focus and Sony Pictures Classics can use the acclaim for their lead actress vehicles going into award season despite Cannes denying them the prize.
impeach this jury!!
Wow, another Palme d'Or for Ken Loach. Awesome but the Grand Jury Prize for Xavier Dolan!!! YAY!!!!
BTW, who won the Technical prize and did Sean Penn get a bag of shit for his shit film?
Steven -- it appears they didn't give out a technical prize this year
As a proud Filipino, I LOVE LOVE LOVE that Jaclyn Jose won at Cannes! She's always been a great actress, especially because she usually avoids the annoying quality of Filipino actors to go over-the-top and include every full-blown soap opera tics. But Mendoza is an acquired taste and I unfortunately find him too sour for mine. He's obviously mining from the same style as old Filipino directors like Brocka, but his films tend to be UGLY and CHEAP-looking. I mean Lav Diaz has the same budget as he does and yet his images are never poorly-lit or badly framed.
Who knows whether any of us will like the winners or the critics picks, but I actually love it when the jury goes counter to the critical consensus. Makes life more interesting.
Curious to see how this helps the new Dolan with distribution. You'd think it would've already been wrapped up pre-fest with that cast, but no.
Does I, DANIEL BLAKE have any US distribution yet? I think I remember Sony Classics picking it up, but I might be wrong
The Technical Prize was won by korean movie The Handmaiden by Park Chan-wook, for the production design
Queen Jaclyn Jose slaying. YASSSSSSS QUEEN!
Damn...this jury is going down as one of the worst. Not a good look. People are maaaaad.
Every year the jury comes out and defends their choices. And it's the same refrain. Passionate discussion bla bla bla lots of disagreement but we got along bla bla bla lots of great choices but we picked the movies we responded to emotionally blabla bla. What the jury misses is that they have a responsibility to reward innovative and influential filmmaking that hits a chord with audiences. They're supposedly experts who can discern quality filmmaking and acting. It's hard to argue passionately for or against any of the choices since none of us has seen any of these movies BUT there is something very obviously broken about this jury's work. They managed to snub all the highlights of the festival. You can't please everyone sure sure whatever but Miller and his co jurors managed to piss off everyone. And yes it's not important who wins ultimately. But how many Dheepans and the Wind that shakes the barleys can you reward before you realize you're missing the point. If you cried at the end of the movie it doesn't make it a good movie and connecting emotionally is a very selfish act that should not speak for the quality of the movie. It speaks of one aspect of the movie.
Anyways my takeaways from watching the coverage:
- I desperately want to watch Toni Erdmann and Elle
- Xavier Dolan is insufferable and ungrateful. The critics made him and he ate it up when it was in his favor. He showed a severe excess of histrionism and lack of sophistication this year. Goodbye Xavier.
- Refn seems to be a one hit wonder
I had high hopes on this jury. They sucked. Braga Forever.
I am with Marcelo! Impeach this!
Sônia Braga and Aquarius deserved to win!!
I am baffled by the internet outrage. People are losing their minds about films they haven't seen, bashing film-makers who had no part in a jury decision, and getting super personable about. Yes we all love film people, but let's take a chill pill! It's only It's Only The End Of the World.
I haven't seen any of the movies, but I like it that the jury isn't lock-step with public opinion.
If only Oscar nominations were so impervious to "locks" and "musts" and "everybody says".
But I am looking forward to seeing the well liked films from Cannes.
It has taken longer than I expected but it seems that now the common internet reaction to winners at Cannes (self-billed as the most prestigious film festival) is the same as the reaction to winners at the Oscars (self-billed as the most prestigious industry award): sudden, fervent hatred coupled with a instant and bitter game of "who deserved it instead" and of course a chorus of calls to junk the whole thing.
I guess Dolan bashing is going to the it-thing for a little while. Sigh.
I bet Cunha was behind this!
The wins made me laugh.
Huppert was considered a favourite here and in Venice, and leaves empty-handed. Then again, she doesn't really need more wards.
Articles state that the jury couldn't award more than one prize to any of the top three films or more than two prizes to any one film, but juries have done both before (Barton Fink comes to mind). Do they just ignore these rules as they feel like it?
suzanne,
I think those rules were imposed after such ("barton fink") wins.
marcelo - That makes sense, since they awarded the actresses from Blue is the Warmest Color a special Palme rather than the Best Actress award. Pulp Fiction, Dancer in the Dark, and Elephant also came to mind as Palme-winning films that won another award at Cannes, but I don't think it's happened in the last ten years.
I haven't seen any of the films so can't comment. However I have seen previous Cannes winners and though 'What the???" Pulp Fiction IMO is one of the most over-rated and crappiest films I have ever seen. And I remember when it won the Palm D'Or - one brave woman stood up and booed it. Did anyone boo any of this year's winners?
Jaclyn Jose is my favorite actress from my country so I'm not mad at this. She has a reputation for being the queen of underacting and I'm very happy because growing up, she was always that woman with the presence who seemed to be relegated to supporting actors with LOUD screen personas.
The third prize in the Cinefondation Selection was actually divided between two films, the other film is La culpa, probablemente by Michael Labarca.