The 77th Annual Cannes Film Festival is en route to conclusion as winners in various prestigious and celebrated categories were announced. Having caused a major stir at the festival this year with their red carpet outfits and whatnot, the festival ended with a big bang for Indians with a historic Grand Prix Award win for Payal Kapadia’s debut feature ‘All We Imagine As Light’!
American filmmaker Sean Baker bagged the highest felicitation at the festival, the Palme d’Or for ‘Anora’, his feature about the whirlwind romance between an exotic dancer, played by Mikey Madison, and the son of a Russian oligarch, played by Mark Eydelshteyn.
The Jury Award was secured by Jacques Audiard for his Mexico-set musical ‘Emilia Perez’ about a cartel boss who disappears in order to reemerge as a woman. The film, a celebration of sisterhood, stars Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, and Karla Sofía Gascón in lead roles. All leading ladies won the Best Actress prize as an ensemble.
The Best Actor honor went to Jesse Plemons, who plays three roles, a submissive businessman, a grieving police officer, and a bisexual cult member, in a surrealist satire from ‘Poor Things’ director Yorgos Lanthimos’ upcoming title ‘Kinds of Kindness’.
Portuguese film director Miguel Gomes was bestowed with the Best Director award for his riveting period drama ‘Grand Tour’ which revolves around an early 20th-century British civil servant who attempts to flee his fiancée by hopping from one Asian country to the other.
Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof was felicitated with a new Prix Spécial award for ‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’, a three-hour film that examines the country’s recent women, life, and freedom movement through a middle-class family whose two daughters question their father’s role in the regime.
Coralie Fargeat received the award for Best Screenplay for ‘The Substance’, a body horror film starring Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and Dennis Quaid.