Festival Circuit 2025

[colinr0380]

... and 2: Sound of Falling.

[Omensetter]

It seems the Palme is between Loznitsa, Panahi, and Trier. (I assume Herzi is winning Actress.)

[colinr0380]

"Who is your favourite Lelouch?"

[Omensetter]

I've gone years without thinking about Claude Lelouch.

[Omensetter]

KMF for director! There hasn't been a director/actor split in who know when—at least twenty plus years. Maybe Barton Fink?

[colinr0380]

Best Actress: Nadia Melliti for The Little Sister (from director Hafsia Herzi, who appeared as an actress in Abdellatif Kechiche's The Secret of the Grain and those two ill fated Mektoub, My Love films)

[Omensetter]

There's either too many ties or maybe Panahi is here because it's been so many years? I'd go with Loznitsa at Grand Prix and Trier at the Palme at this point, or Panahi and Loznitsa at Grand Prix.

[Omensetter]

They're not doing a tie for the Palme are they?

[colinr0380]

Grand Prix to Joachim Trier for Sentimental Value. He's making the best speech so far.

[colinr0380]

Cate Blanchett introducing the Palme D'or applauding 'displaced film artists' : Panahi?

[Never Cursed]

Fucking Neon.

[Never Cursed]

Jafar Panahi is now the fifth director to win the Palme, Golden Bear, and Golden Lion (after Clouzot, Altman, Antonioni, and Godard - honorarily)

[soundchaser]

Just rename the thing the Palme de Néon and get it over with

[Never Cursed]

Why was Loznitsa there?

[soundchaser]

I know I'm late to the party, but I'm surprised the Reichardt got totally shut out - felt like it had garnered pretty solid notices before today.

[Never Cursed]

I thought that always happened to movies that played the last day of the festival (though I would be happy to see counterexamples to this bit of received wisdom)

[Omensetter]

Rosetta and The Class won the Palme playing on the last day. The Dardennes today won screenplay playing on the last day. Caleb Landry-Jones won Best Actor in 2021 playing on the last day. Placement doesn't matter, and I believe the jury can watch the films in any order they wish.

Panahi's a good winner, and it was genuinely well-received.

Sometimes director's hang around and are invited to the Closing Ceremony. Sometimes it honestly feels like they are distractors to mitigate the inevitable leaks, but that's conspiratorial on my part.

[rrenault]

Now I suddenly feel like revisiting The Circle.

Despite the Neon factor, a Panahi film isn’t something I can see getting nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars like 4 of the last 5 Palme winners.

[colinr0380]

Jury not knowing what to do with Bi Gan but not wanting to snub him. (He won a "special prize".)

In the jury press conference Binoche is describing Bi Gan as a UFO, so they had to create a special award for the film.

[domino harvey]

Now I suddenly feel like revisiting The Circle.

Despite the Neon factor, a Panahi film isn’t something I can see getting nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars like 4 of the last 5 Palme winners.

From what I’ve heard, the Grand Prix winner sounds far more likely to factor into the Oscars this year

[ryannichols7]

Sentimental Value is gonna get way, way more push in America. I won't be surprised if Neon bury the Panahi in the US which is gonna be really upsetting. I wish Mubi had gotten it here too, I think it would've gotten a more fair showing. only advantage of Neon is that Criterion will inevitably put it out

I'm just glad Cannes went back to being more international this year. really good spread of winners. excited to see the movies!

[brundlefly]

only advantage of Neon is that Criterion will inevitably put it out

I'm happy NEON is getting a lot of these because they're better at getting their films into theaters near me - and then they stream perpetually on Hulu, where they're at least available to more eyes than they would get on The Criterion Channel (I'm assuming) or Mubi (definitely). Janus couldn't even get The Shrouds on to more than a single screen within an hour of me -- not even into our one surviving college town art house -- and that was for a single week. NEON got Crimes of the Future into more than half the AMC multiplexes near me for almost a month.

That's not a 1:1 with these pick-ups, of course; a more pertinent example would probably be Seed of the Sacred Fig, which I don't think came to the area at all... though it didn't have Accident's award. I'd expect the Trier to get a screen in some of the larger multiplexes in the area.

And if the NEON pick-ups don't score Criterion discs, they'll still see release on Decal, which is probably no better or worse than the Janus Contemporaries release they'd otherwise get.

[ryannichols7]

only advantage of Neon is that Criterion will inevitably put it out

I'm happy NEON is getting a lot of these because they're better at getting their films into theaters near me - and then they stream perpetually on Hulu, where they're at least available to more eyes than they would get on The Criterion Channel (I'm assuming) or Mubi (definitely). Janus couldn't even get The Shrouds on to more than a single screen within an hour of me -- not even into our one surviving college town art house -- and that was for a single week. NEON got Crimes of the Future into more than half the AMC multiplexes near me for almost a month.

That's not a 1:1 with these pick-ups, of course; a more pertinent example would probably be Seed of the Sacred Fig, which I don't think came to the area at all... though it didn't have Accident's award. I'd expect the Trier to get a screen in some of the larger multiplexes in the area.

And if the NEON pick-ups don't score Criterion discs, they'll still see release on Decal, which is probably no better or worse than the Janus Contemporaries release they'd otherwise get.

Neon only really care about winning the Palme and occasionally marketing something to filmbros - the way they're tweeting this afternoon is embarrassing. they had zero hand in producing Panahi's film but they're posting pictures of Michael Jordan and touting "their" six Palmes, when these are rightfully rewarded to directors instead of distributors. I think it's moreso a lack of respect to what they acquire. Seed of the Sacred Fig they only bought last year because it was a potential winner, and once it didn't win, they absolutely buried it. I still haven't even gotten to see it. ditto Memoria which at least I did see, but they buried. Janus give more love to their "big" titles despite their smaller footprint, and so does Mubi. I got to see Decision to Leave in theatres easily and if I had interest in The Substance I would've been able to do the same. I've certainly been able to see plenty of Neon titles (the best of which was Perfect Days), but they dump so many others, and I could see them doing that for everything they acquired this time aside from the Trier...

the consolation for sure for any movie going Neon instead of Janus is getting a mainline release instead of a Janus Contemporaries. only Drive My Car and (supposedly) Flow are exceptions so far

[brundlefly]

Seed of the Sacred Fig they only bought last year because it was a potential winner, and once it didn't win, they absolutely buried it. I still haven't even gotten to see it. ditto Memoria which at least I did see, but they buried. Janus give more love to their "big" titles despite their smaller footprint, and so does Mubi. I got to see Decision to Leave in theatres easily and if I had interest in The Substance I would've been able to do the same. I've certainly been able to see plenty of Neon titles (the best of which was Perfect Days), but they dump so many others, and I could see them doing that for everything they acquired this time aside from the Trier...

the consolation for sure for any movie going Neon instead of Janus is getting a mainline release instead of a Janus Contemporaries. only Drive My Car and (supposedly) Flow are exceptions so far

Seed of the Sacred Fig came out on blu-ray early this month and comes to Hulu in three days. I don't know how many stipulations were put on Memoria's release by its director, but that distribution was by design not comparable to anything else.

The percentage of projects Mubi is getting into theaters near me is not a speck in NEON's eye, though if they're going to make more of a concerted effort towards that then all power to 'em. The Substance was a huge hit in English with a well-known star playing a role that fit her narrative in a very pro-marketing way; NEON got Titane in multiplexes and i don't even know that the horror angle dominated their marketing.

[Omensetter]

I think NEON's problem, insofar as they have one (they don't—yet), is that they legitimately have really only had one film that could make an impact at the Oscars over the last three years, and NEON did put The Seed of the Sacred Fig on 250 screens and garner an IFF nomination—same for Wim Wenders's Perfect Days. Perfect Days' box office haul was respectable, and Fig's was about as good as one could expect from a three-hour film in Farsi. NEON is really good at identifying which of their horses can work for them and working it.

They overreached this year, though. Joachim Trier's last film garnered a screenplay nomination, and Charli XCX recently gave a high-profile shoutout to Joachim Trier. Their playbook is clear this year, and I don't know how much they can do with Panahi and KMF outside, at best, what they did with Perfect Days. I'm skeptical of Panahi fever extending into the American Midwest, so KMF is probably their best non-Trier bet. A lot of the very high-profile English-language films due in the fall (Baumbach, Safdie, PTA, GDT, Zhou, Bigelow, Safdie, Luca, Lanthimos) will have to miss in addition to stuff like the Wicked sequel. If they want to throw their hat in the ring for some likely fall festival films without distribution such as Winocaur, Gavras, Fastvold, Kent Jones, Schnabel, or Assayas, it seems like they will now have to compete with an A24 and Netflix who spent nothing at Cannes. Óliver Laxe is in pole position for neglect, though.