Cannes 2016

[lacritfan]

Wow Ken Loach has two Palme D'ors now.

[MongooseCmr]

The Dolan win is surreal. I'd love to be in the deliberation sessions for that one

And I've just read that none of the top nine highest rated films in competition won anything. Not sure if that's 100% right but it makes the whole thing even stranger

[lacritfan]

Holy shit, that Toni Erdmann snub has to be one of the biggest Cannes shockers in recent memory

Was really hoping Maren Ade or Andrea Arnold would win best director.

[criterion10]

Surprised to see The Salesman win two major awards -- isn't there a rule against that?

[John Cope]

Wow. They must not have liked the Ade at all. And that absurd Dolan win seems like either a vote of fellow filmmaker solidarity against the hated critics or a slap in the face to the rest of us.

[domino harvey]

Rumor is George Miller hated Toni Erdmann and pressured the rest of the jury away from it... and towards many, many movies no one seemed to like. What a shitshow

[domino harvey]

Surprised to see The Salesman win two major awards -- isn't there a rule against that?

Yes, post Barton Fink the cap on wins per film is two

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Surprised to see The Salesman win two major awards -- isn't there a rule against that?

http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/festiv ... Rules.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"No film can receive more than one award. However, the award for the Best Screenplay and the Jury Prize can be combined with a Best Performance award, on special dispensation of the Festival's President."

[RSTooley]

And I've just read that none of the top nine highest rated films in competition won anything. Not sure if that's 100% right but it makes the whole thing even stranger

Graduation would likely be considered one of the more acclaimed films this year, but otherwise you're correct. I'm shocked there was no love for Aquarius, Elle, Paterson, and Toni Erdmann. Even divisive films like Slack Bay and Staying Vertical seemingly had more praise than some of the winners.

[criterion10]

Yes, post Barton Fink the cap on wins per film is two

Pretty sure it was post-Elephant (which won the Palme and Director).

"No film can receive more than one award. However, the award for the Best Screenplay and the Jury Prize can be combined with a Best Performance award, on special dispensation of the Festival's President."

Makes sense, thanks.

[TMDaines]

People seemingly always forget that the awards at film festivals are often decided upon by juries. With only the opinions of such a few people mattering, you're always likely to get a pick that does not correlate with the consensus. I'm not really sure there is such thing as an upset unless a simply shocking film with no redeeming merit wins.

[domino harvey]

Criterion10, the two win cap for sure was a result of Barton Fink's controversial three wins, but it does look like they changed the rules again more recently to those linked above

I'm not really sure there is such thing as an upset unless a simply shocking film with no redeeming merit wins.

Based on the critical response, you just described most of these wins

[TMDaines]

No, I haven't and you know it.

[domino harvey]

TMDaines = George Miller? Trying to argue that the majority of these wins aren't outrageous and/or surprising is absurd. I can't argue quality, I haven't seen the films, but no one predicted almost any of these wins, apparently often for good reason

[TMDaines]

No-one ever seems to do well at predicting these things at festivals because they seem to forget to factor in that individuals have widely different tastes and these are not consensus awards or mass polls.

For the same reasons, I wouldn't expect only six or seven ballots for one of decades projects to form a list that roughly tallies with the widely held consensus canon.

It's quite clear that what seemed to be the consensus favourites haven't done well here, but the odds on them doing so was slim anyway.

[FrauBlucher]

Competition winners
Palme d’Or- Ken Loach, I, Daniel Blake

Grand Prix- Xavier Dolan, It’s Only the End of the World

Jury Prize- Andrea Arnold, American Honey

Camera d’Or- Houda Benyamina, Divines

Best director- tie: Olivier Assayas, Personal Shopper, and Cristian Mungiu, Graduation

Best screenplay- Asghar Farhadi, The Salesman

Best actress- Jaclyn Jose, Ma ‘Rosa

Best actor- Shahab Hosseini, The Salesman

Short film- Timecode, Juanjo Jimenez

Honorary Palme d’Or- Jean-Pierre Léaud

[MichaelB]

No-one ever seems to do well at predicting these things at festivals because they seem to forget to factor in that individuals have widely different tastes and these are not consensus awards or mass polls.

They also have widely different professions. I've been the lone critic on four festival juries, and can confirm first-hand that filmmakers and actors often look at things from radically different perspectives.

[Finch]

They should have given the Palme D'Or to The Last Face, just for shits and giggles and to watch the press heads explode. Mind, awarding Dolan for It's only the End of the World resulted in some major handwringing from critics on twitter.

Anyone remember the last time the jury diverged so sharply from critical opinion?

[thirtyframesasecond]

I always thought Dolan was pretty well liked, or at least his films were. I don't remember any of his previous films being attacked so much. I know reactions at Cannes can be pretty polemical, but is IOTEOTW considered so awful or does Dolan just seem to piss people off?

Cannes always has its share of WTF awards, so nothing surprises me.

[colinr0380]

There's also the issue they mentioned in the press conference that any film winning the Palme D'or, Jury Prize and Best Director is apparently now not allowed to win anything else, so perhaps that might affect decision making in deciding how to allocate awards. In some ways I'm glad that the critics and the jury diverged, especially when either awards or critical recognition are key (at least in theory) in getting distribution. That means twice as many films getting championed!

(Its interesting seeing the UK media scrambling around in the wake of the Ken Loach win! It seems they got caught a little by surprise by it!)

[MichaelB]

(Its interesting seeing the UK media scrambling around in the wake of the Ken Loach win! It seems they got caught a little by surprise by it!)

I'm looking forward to David Cameron's congratulatory tweet. Given the bandwagons he's jumped on in the past, he can hardly ignore the first British Palme d'Or winner in years, but I suspect it won't exactly be his favourite film.

[colinr0380]

"This film proves that with enough courage and self-drive anyone can manage without our benefits system and turn their life threatening disabilities into an asset as part of an internationally successful entrepreneurial endeavour of which our country can be proud! In honour of this award I am fast-tracking a bill through Parliament that ensures that every boy in secondary education is provided with their own kestrel, either to take care of or use as part of a nutritionally-balanced, sugar free family meal, as seen fit"

[tenia]

What was fantastic was Gibson's speech. "I hope this prize changes the winner's career as much as Miller changed mine".
Winner : 80 years old, 13 nominations, already 1 Palme and many other Cannes prizes. What a revolution. What a ballsy result.

As for the rules of the palmares, the capping rules were added by Polanski right after Barton Fink so that no other movie could ever get so many prizes at Cannes. However, the rules were slightly amended afterwards though I dont recall when exactly. It was I believe at least a few ago however.

[colinr0380]

Loach had a good response to the inevitable EU question in the post-awards press conference: "I see the EU as embodying neo-liberalism. You can see it in the way they have been humiliating the Greek people."

Miller vaguely brought up in the press conference the issue of Rosetta getting both the Palme D'or and Best Actress (though Émilie Dequenne for Best Actress tied with Séverine Caneele in Dumont's L'humanité) when he was last on the jury, which was apparently something else that caused a change in the rules.

[ianungstad]

The Dolan film getting a win is a shocker. The Loach film got very good reviews with just about everyone saying it's Ken Loach's best film in years. IFC picked it up. I wonder if they'll give it an awards season release. Criterion will probably handle home video.