The triumphant return of the Cannes Film Festival

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Film Festivals

A Cannes-Do Attitude

France’s preeminent film festival made a triumphant return

By Emily Grossman

ATTENDEES OF THIS YEAR’S

Cannes Film Festival, which ran July 6–17 in the famed French seaside town, were making up for lost time. Following the cancellation of the 2020 fest, the 74th edition of Cannes signaled a relative return to normality for the international film community.

This year’s jury was headed by Spike Lee, whose gaffe at the closing award ceremony lit up social media: The legendary director misunderstood the cards and announced the most major award, the Palme d’Or, at the outset of the evening. That prestigious honor went to French director Julia Ducournau for “Titane,” her gender-bending body-horror film about a woman (played by Agathe Rousselle) impregnated by a car. Ducournau sat patiently in the audience while the awards presentation proceeded before Lee and Sharon Stone presented her with the Palme d’Or at the end of the ceremony.

Accepting the award, Ducournau said, “There is so much beauty and emotion to be found in what cannot be pigeonholed. Thank you to the jury for calling for more diversity in our film experiences and in our lives. And thank you to the jury for letting the monsters in.” Ducournau is only the second woman in the history of the Cannes Film Festival to win its top award; the first was Jane Campion for “The Piano” in 1993 (which tied with “Farewell My Concubine” from Chen Kaige).

The Cannes jury included Mati Diop, a French-Senegalese actor-director who made fest history two years ago when she became the first Black female director to be accepted into competition; her feature-directing debut, “Atlantics,” went on to win the Grand Prix. Rounding out the jury were Canadian-French singer-songwriter Mylène Farmer, American actor-director-screenwriter-producer Maggie Gyllenhaal, Austrian director-screenwriter Jessica Hausner, French actor-director-screenwriter Mélanie Laurent, Brazilian director-producer-screenwriter Kleber Mendonça Filho, and actors Tahar Rahim and Song Kang-ho, who hail from France and South Korea, respectively.

The jury announced a tie between two titles for the Grand Prix, the second-most prestigious award at the festival: “A Hero,” directed by Iran’s Asghar Farhadi, and “Compartment No. 6” from Finland’s Juho Kuosmanen. The jury awarded both “Ahed’s Knee” (Nadav Lapid) and “Memoria” (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) the Jury Prize in another tie, and gave the best director prize to Leos Carax for his musical film “Annette,” starring Marion Cotillard and Adam Driver. Finally, two honorary Palme d’Or prizes went to Cannes regulars Jodie Foster and Marco Bellocchio in recognition of their contributions to international cinema.

After the year off, studio distributors came to this edition of Cannes excited to acquire as many projects as possible. Indie distributor Neon, which in 2019 led Palme d’Or winner “Parasite” to impressive awards season results (including the Oscar for best picture), may be trying to replicate that success; the studio acquired the winning “Titane” and Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person in the World.” The latter film garnered a best actress award for Renate Reinsve, while best actor went to Caleb Landry Jones for his performance in “Nitram.” Amazon Studios also had a large presence at this year’s festival, having already scooped up the best director–winning “Annette” and Grand Prix winner “A Hero.” Meanwhile, Sony Pictures Classics picked up the other Grand Prix winner, “Compartment No. 6.” For the full list of Cannes winners and more on the fest, visit backstage.com/magazine.