There were a lot of winners at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The top prize went to Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda for his movie Shoplifters, “a moving portrait of an self-made family scraping by at the bottom of Japanese society.” Although the Palme d’Or isn’t a reliable awards barometer like the people’s choice award at TIFF, it still gives a movie a level of recognition it might not otherwise would have received. It’s particularly a boon to foreign-language films such as The Square, Dheepan, Amour, and The White Ribbon, just to name a handful of winners from the last ten years. While only Amour went on to get a Best Picture nomination, the Palme still helps put a movie on cinephiles’ radars, and I’ll certainly be on the lookout for Shoplifters.
The other big winner was Spike Lee, who took home the Grand Prix for his newest film, BlacKkKlansman, which is based on the true story of a black detective who was able to infiltrate the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Lee accepted the prize “on behalf of the People’s Republic of Brooklyn, New York.” Lee famously lost out on the Palme d’Or back in 1989 when he should have won for his monumental Do the Right Thing (the winner that year was Sex, Lies and Videotape).
Check out the full list of winners below via Variety:
COMPETITION
Palme d’Or: “Shoplifters,” Hirokazu Kore-eda
Grand Prix: “BlacKkKlansman,” Spike Lee
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski, “Cold War”
Actor: Marcello Fonte, ”Dogman”
Actress: Samal Yeslyamova, “Ayka”
Jury Prize: Nadine Labaki, “Capernaum”
Screenplay — TIE: Alice Rohrwacher, “Happy as Lazzaro” AND Jafar Panahi, Nader Saeivar, “3 Faces”
Special Palme d’Or: Jean-Luc Godard
OTHER PRIZES
Camera d’Or: “Girl,” Lukas Dhont
Short Films Palme d’Or: “All These Creatures,” Charles Williams
Short Films Special Mention: “On the Border,” Shujun Wei
Golden Eye Documentary Prize: TBA
Ecumenical Jury Prize: “Capernaum,” Nadine Labaki
Ecumenical Jury Special Mention: “BlacKkKlansman,” Spike Lee
Queer Palm: “Girl,” Lukas Dhont
UN CERTAIN REGARD
Un Certain Regard Award: Ali Abbasi, “Border”
Best Director: Sergei Loznitsa, “Donbass”
Best Performance: Victor Polster, “Girl”
Best Screenplay: Meryem Benm’Barek, “Sofia”
Special Jury Prize: João Salaviza & Renée Nader Messora, “The Dead and the Others”
DIRECTORS’ FORTNIGHT
Art Cinema Award: “Climax” (Gaspar Noé)
Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers Prize: “The Trouble With You” (Pierre Salvadori)
Europa Cinemas Label: “Lucia’s Grace (Gianni Zanasi)
Illy Short Film Award: “Skip Day” (Patrick Bresnan, Ivete Lucas)
CRITICS’ WEEK
Grand Prize: “Diamantino” (Gabriel Abrantes, Daniel Schmidt)
Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers Prize: “Woman at War” (Benedikt Erlingsson)
GAN Foundation Award for Distribution: “Sir”
Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award: Felix Maritaud, “Sauvage.”
Short Film: “Hector Malot – The Last Day Of The Year” (Jacqueline Lentzou)
FIPRESCI
Competition: “Burning,” (Lee Chang-dong)
Un Certain Regard: “Girl,” (Lukas Dhont)
Directors’ Fortnight/Critics’ Week: “One Day” (Zsófa Szilagyi)
CINÉFONDATION
First Prize: “The Summer of the Electric Lion,” Diego Céspedes
Second Prize — TIE: “Calendar,” Igor Poplauhin AND “The Storms in Our Blood,” Shen Di
Third Prize: “Inanimate,” Lucia Bulgheroni