Cannes Closing Ceremony - the Palme to "Shoplifters"
Saturday, May 19, 2018 at 6:36PM by Nathaniel R
The 71st edition of Cannes has ended. The closing ceremony started all fiery with Asia Argento reminding the audience that she was raped at the festival and Harvey Weinstein used to use Cannes as his "hunting ground" but after that impassioned speech, this settled quickly into the usual Closing Ceremony format of jury introductions, and strange presentation of awards in which "presenters" don't actually do the presenting but then turn to Madame President (in this case Cate Blanchett in a dress with a bow the size of her entire body on its back) to read out the winners.
So here's one last gif-heavy look at Cannes, which is really our first look (since the films have yet to open anywhere) at the winners from the closing ceremony. Many of these titles will go on to further glories at other festivals and hopefully in theatrical release in the US and some will definitely be Oscar foreign language film submissions. But even if this is the end of their awards run, winning prizes at Cannes remains a very big deal...
THE JURY INTRODUCTIONS
The host welcomed Cate who began in French before switching to English and then mostly impeccably pronounced the names of her jury members but kept apologizing as if her pronunciation of Russian and French and so on names wasn't great. Girl, please. You know you're a goddess.
THE JURY
Won't you miss this jury? One more round of applause please for what is surely the most physically beautiful jury Cannes ever assembled.
AND NOW ON TO THE PRIZE WINNERS
SHORT FILMS
Jury Special Distinction Short Film Yan Bian Shao Nian for On the Border (China)
This 15 minute short is about a Korean teenager leaving his village home and roaming
Palme d'Or Short Film Charles Williams for All These Creatures (Australia)
A thirteen minute short described like so: "An adolescent boy attempts to untangle his memories of a mysterious infestation, the unravelling of his father, and the little creatures inside us all"
CAMERA D'OR
Camera d'Or Lukas Dhont for Girl (Belgium)
This film won prizes earlier as well in its sidebar including Best Performance for its teenage lead. He plays a trans ballerina struggling with her body. The director is only 24 years old so this is very much a youth project given the star and director. Will Belgium submit this one? They switch back and forth annual between French and Dutch language submissions and this year it's time for another Dutch one. IMDb doesn't help us much here because they say that Girl is in both Dutch and French.
MAIN COMPETITION
Best Actress Samal Yeslyamova for Ayka (Russia/Kazakhstan)
She plays a desperate new mother who can't afford to raise her child. This film is from the director of Tulpan which you might remember was an Oscar submission from Kazakhstan ten years back. So this has to be considered a threat to be their submission this year after its reception at Cannes.
Best Screenplay [TIE] Alice Rohrwacher for Happy as Lazarro (Italy) and Jafar Panahi for Three Faces (Iran)
Rohrwacher is well loved at Cannes but her films haven't really made a dent in the American arthouse audience consciousness yet. Maybe this time?
Best Director Pawel Pawlikowski for Cold War (Poland)
Love this director! He previously made the Oscar winning Ida and his other fine films include My Summer of Love (which introduced the world to Emily Blunt!) and the underseen but moving Last Resort
Best Actor Marcello Fonte for Dogman (Italy)
He plays a dog groomer who gets involved with a burglary. I'd expect this to be Italy's Oscar submission since they previously submitted Gomorra by this director.
Palme d'Or Special Prize Jean Luc-Godard for The Image Book (France)
Prix du Jury (3rd Place) Nadine Labaki for Capernaum (Lebanon)
This film about a young boy suing his parents was a sensation at the festival. Some are saying this is a slam dunk for an Oscar nomination if Lebanon submits it. (Lebanon just received their first nomination last season for The Insult). Sony Pictures Classics will release it in December.
Grand Prix (2nd Place) Spike Lee for BlacKkKlansman (US)
Spike Lee has been going to this festival since the 1980s so this must feel sweet for him. This is his third prize at Cannes. The first two were an "award of the youth" for She's Gotta Have It (1986) and a special mention for Jungle Fever (1991). It seems insane now but Do The Right Thing (1989), now regarded as one of the greatest films of its decade and hardly unloved in its actual time, won nothing during its Cannes year.
Palme d'Or Hirokazu Koreeda for Shoplifters (Japan)
Koreeda came in third place for Like Father Like Son five years ago. But we can't necessarily count on Japan to send this one to the Oscars. They often choose strangely and they've only submitted Koreeda once before (for Nobody Knows (2004) which was not nominated.
Are you excited for the prize winners to make it to your eyeballs?
Reader Comments (22)
Lebanon actually was nominated at the last Oscars. Remember "The Insult"?
Also, sorry Anne Thompson but Blackkklansman is coming for wigs
Cate and the jury did the right thing denying Capernaum the biggest award. I saw the film that has been hyped up intil its premiere and it's disturbing porn misery in the make up of white guilt. A Slumdog-Millonaire-like fairytale more suitable for an Unicef promo than actual cinema.
The"other" female director deserved better. Happy as Lazzaro is as good as it has been hyped. I was afraid I will be seeing a second coming of the aweful Jesus of Montreal. It's not at all. Think of Pasolini with a hint of Tavianis brothers. An an amazing "corrective" of the simpleton Forrest Gump. Magical realism that it's very difficult to pull off comvincingly. Rohrwacher did it. Straight to my faves of the year.
Didn't see Shoplifters but an award for Kore-Eda is fine by me.
Burning, though. WOW. Lee Chan Dong had to be the winner! South Korea has been giving gem after gem this century. Cannes never awarded a film from that country. The Oscars had been obnoxiously square to Asian Cinema. Well, this year they have TWO films they could not pass.
Cate and the jury did the right thing denying Capernaum the biggest award. I saw the film that has been hyped up intil its premiere and it's disturbing porn misery in the make up of white guilt. A Slumdog-Millonaire-like fairytale more suitable for an Unicef promo than actual cinema.
The"other" female director deserved better. Happy as Lazzaro is as good as it has been hyped. I was afraid I will be seeing a second coming of the aweful Jesus of Montreal. It's not at all. Think of Pasolini with a hint of Tavianis brothers. An an amazing "corrective" of the simpleton Forrest Gump. Magical realism that it's very difficult to pull off comvincingly. Rohrwacher did it. Straight to my faves of the year.
Didn't see Shoplifters but an award for Kore-Eda is fine by me.
Burning, though. WOW. Lee Chan Dong had to be the winner! South Korea has been giving gem after gem this century. Cannes never awarded a film from that country. The Oscars had been obnoxiously square to Asian Cinema. Well, this year they have TWO films they could not pass.
It should have been BPM, Pedro! You failed us!
I have been loving Hirokazu since Maborosi, 23 years ago! He is generous, and that's the best quality a director can have in this era of Lanthimos, Ostlund and other filmmakers who seem to hate people.If only Lee Chang Dong got a prize, too.
cal roth
Preach! Amen!
Stay in line for the weird, amazing, HUMAN AS FUCK thing that is Lazzaro Felicce!! A medicine for all the cynic filmmakers that populated Cannes this year!!
A film about exploitation that is ANYTHING but. That's all I'm going to say:))
I meant last year, sorry. Well, except Labaki :((
Nathaniel will be in clud 9 that the Pawlikowsky's is, at core, a romance musical:)) I liked better IDA, but still...
Nathaniel will be in clud 9 that the Pawlikowsky's is, at core, a romance musical:)) I liked better IDA, but still...
Shame about the Chang-dong and Zhangke leaving empty-handed (obviously if only because I like those directors and the reviews seemed positive enough to expect they'd be popular in the judges room), but a Kore-eda win is nothing to sniff at. He's a great director and one whose career is deserving of a Palme.
Surely Japan has to submit it though. What fools if they don't. South Korea should submit BURNING, too. China would never submit a Zhangke, however.
TBH, I'm almost happy none of the female directors won the Palme. You just know people would put an asterisk next to it and say "it only won because..." and so on. Likewise the Spike Lee. People would've been "Ava got her way".
YES for Hirokazu Koreeda and Spike Lee! I'm glad they got big prizes.
I know how upset Asia Argento is but that was not the place.
Glenn
Rohrwacher would have been a deserved winner!
I get what Glenn is saying. Does anyone really think Haneke would have won for The White Ribbon without Huppert demanding his prize against the will of the other members of the jury?
Haneke's victory for Amour was a totally different business, since Moretti not only had expressed his dislike for Haneke, but also managed to block Funny Games' path to any prizes in 1997. These are the best wins, when you can't connect the jury and the winners. But when Tarantino gives the Palm to a movie produced by the Weinstein brothers or to his ex Sofia Coppola, you know things get smelly.
TBH, I'm almost happy none of the female directors won the Palme. You just know people would put an asterisk next to it and say "it only won because..." and so on. Likewise the Spike Lee. People would've been "Ava got her way".
All awards are political. Whether based on consensus popularity or the agenda of the few to sway the many. One could argue he got something because Ava did get her way and that was their compromise.
No, not all awards are political. I am so sick of your phony crap.
Before I looked online who won this year's Palme d'Or, I was hoping it would be Changdong-Lee for Burning or Hirokazu Kore-eda for Burning, and boy was I pleased to see it went to Kore-eda. His family-oriented films are like quiet meditations of everyday life especially the recent Our Little Sister.
I am looking to seeing Kore-eda's film and Rohrwacher and Zhangke and the two Lees (Spike and Changdong). I am glad that Sergei Devortsevoy's film got an award. I read his interviews when he was making Tulpan and his view of being hailed the father of Kazakh cinema was interesting since he was born before the Soviet Union's collapse. There is a huge identification with being a Soviet than a Kazakh apparently.
It would be interesting to see the same films competing in other festivals and awards and seeing what film will be given the prize that will show the character of the film collective in each festival.
I'm only speaking about perception, not anything about worthiness.
SHOPLIFTING seems to be a win that nobody can find any bias for. Everyone seemed to really like it. It seems the most unpolitical of wins.
Well, The White Ribbon is an absolute masterpiece so YES
It is fascinating to me that people can feel so strongly about movies they haven’t seen. I think Cannes is amazing in that it brings these international treats to a wider audience. Such a breath of fresh air from the usual formula.
I m Lebanese so I’m personally thrilled for Capernaum having been noticed at all. It’s matter if national pride for a tiny little country with problems way way bigger than itself and a really thirsty vibrant artistic community. This movie was really made for nothing by a young female director and her family and friends. So even if the end product is not my cup of tea, the achievement is massive. And yes Lebanon was nominated for an oscar just last year
I m looking forward for Shoplifters, Happy as Lazarro, the Blackkklansman (that movie is going to disturb!!!), Burning, Cold War and pretty much everything! Haha.
Cate was an excellent president. Classy as fuck and seemed to have earned the respect of all the jurors. Very very needed in this time where some people are starting to think women are getting ahead for political reasons. She was more than capable, a formidable presence and the choices seem to reflect a real maturity and understanding of the art. Kind of what usually happens when a woman leads the show.
Chofer & Tony -- YES. of course about Lebanon just a few months ago.. I forgot to update my statistics. whoops. fixed.
Capernaum was not made by a young female director for a small budget. She's in her mid-40s, and 4 million is an enormous budget in Lebanon. Yes, the film was funded by her fam and friends bc they're all millionaires.
It is shameful poverty porn made by rich people who want to collect awards. I know several producers on that film and they are bigots.