The 77th Cannes Film Festival is drawing to a close Saturday with the presentation of its top award, the Palme d'Or, along with an honorary tribute for George Lucas.
Any of the 22 films that premiered in competition at Cannes are eligible for the Palme d’Or and other prizes, like the Grand Prix, best actress and best actor. Deciding them all will be the nine-person jury presided over, this year, by Greta Gerwig.
The jury awarded a special prize to Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig," a drama made secretly in Iran. Days ahead of the film's premiere, Rasoulof, facing an eight-year prison sentence, fled Iran on foot. His film, which includes real footage from the 2022-2023 demonstrations in Iran, channels Iranian oppression into a family drama. The Cannes crowd met an emotional Rasoulof with a lengthy standing ovation.
Coralie Fargeat's body horror film “The Substance,” starring Demi Moore as a Hollywood actress who goes to gory extremes to remain youthful, won for best screenplay.
“I really believe that movies can change the world, so I hope this movie will be a little stone to build new foundations," said Fargeat. “I really think we need a revolution and I don't think it has really started yet.”
Some thought Moore might take best actress but that award instead went to an ensemble of actors: Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz for Jacques Audiard's “Emilia Perez,” a Spanish-language musical about a Mexican drug lord who transitions to a woman. Gascón, who accepted the award, is the first trans actor to win a major prize at Cannes.
“Emilia Perez” also won Cannes' jury prize, giving a rare two awards at a festival where prizes are usually spread around.
Best actor went to Jesse Plemons for Yorgos Lanthimos' “Kinds of Kindness.” In the film, three stories are told with largely the same company of actors. Plemons, a standout in several chapters, didn't attend the closing ceremony.
Portuguese director Miguel Gomes won best director for his “Grand Tour," an Asian odyssey in which a man flees his fiancée from Rangoon in 1917.
“Sometimes I get lucky,” shrugged Gomes.
The Camera d'Or, the prize for best first feature across all of Cannes official selections, went to Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel for “Armand,” starring “The Worst Person in the World” star Renate Reinsve. Tøndel is the grandson of Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman and Norwegian actor Liv Ullman.
The jury's deliberations take place in secret, so anything could potentially win the Palme. But a handful of films are seen as the most likely contenders, among them Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine As Light," Rasoulof's “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” and Baker's “Anora.”
“The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” about an Iranian family living through the country's 2022 protests, was shot clandestinely in Iran and includes real videos from the demonstrations. Just ahead of its Cannes debut, Rasoulof, facing an eight-year prison sentence, fled Iran. He arrived in Cannes several days ago and, on the red carpet, held up photographs of two of his actors, Soheila Golestani and Missagh Zareh.
“All We Imagine As Light,” the first Indian film in competition in Cannes in 30 years, is about two nurses who forge a bond in modern Mumbai. It’s Kapadia’s second feature, following the documentary “A Night of Knowing Nothing.”
“Anora,” by the American filmmaker of “The Florida Project,” is about a Brooklyn sex worker who marries the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch, provoking a farcical rush to annul the marriage. The film's star, Mikey Madison, gives one of the most widely hailed performances of the festival.
During the brief awards ceremony, Lucas was to be given an honorary Palme d'Or. During the festival, Cannes gave the same tribute to Meryl Streep and the Japanese anime factory Studio Ghibli.
Following the awards, the winner of the Palme will be screened for the audience in the Grand Théâtre Lumière.
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