Winners of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival

Though it could be called ‘old news’, we will be hearing about and seeing the winners (and ‘Official Selections’) at the 67th Cannes Film Festival for the next year so as films that were picked up for distribution, or had distribution all but locked in before the festival even began or, more importantly, continue to get new territories and countries as of this writing, should be covered.

Firstly, the winner of the Palm D’Or was Winter Sleep directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan.  His films are not super well known in America, however his previous film, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, screneed in art-houses and garnered much praise among critics winding up on numerous top ten lists; of his eight films six have screened at the festival.

Winter Sleep is a Turkish film and is described by the Cannes Film Festival synopsis page as being about “Aydin (played by Haluk Bilginer) , a former actor, runs a small hotel in central Anatolia with his young wife Nihal (Melisa Sozen) with whom he has a stormy relationship and his sister Necla who is suffering from her recent divorce. In winter as the snow begins to fall, the hotel turns into a shelter but also an inescapable place that fuels their animosities.”

The film doesn’t have a distributor for the US or UK but should very soon – I can’t remember the last time a film won the Palm D’Or and didn’t come state-side at least – but as of today has 30 different foreign territories across Europe, Latin America and Asia.

A big winner at the festival was Foxcatcher, which went to director Bennett Miller (Moneyball, Oscar nominated for Capote) and is another ‘based-on-a-true-story‘ about how John Du Pont (Steve Carrell, all but unrecognizable in make-up) became a mentor to Olympic wrestler Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) and also had a relationship to his brother (Mark Ruffalo).  Ultimately this story ended in murder, and the film examines how this spiraled out of control.   This marks a marked change for Carrell into dramatic territory, and got good reviews at the festival as it aims to be an awards contender later this year.

In the acting categories, Timothy Spall (you might remember him as Wormtail from the Harry Potter series) won for best actor in Mr Turner, the latest by veteran director Mike Leigh, playing an eccentric British painter (the fillm was produced by Film4 and will be released in October in the UK; the US has no release date but rights are with Sony Pictures Classics).  The cinematographer and frequent Leigh collaborator Dick Pope also won a prize for the film.

Best Actress went to Julianne Moore in one of the more high-profile casts at the festival for Maps of the Stars.  The reviews have been mixed but praise has been shown to the actors for what seems to be a slight departure for director David Cronenberg – it’s his first film shot in Hollywood and a biting, dark comedy about the movie industry (for example, Carrie Fisher appears as herself) – which also includes John Cusack, Robert Pattinson and Mia Wasikowska.  This is one of the films I’m certainly most excited about, and Moore’s rarely ever been less than great on screen.  No UK release is planned yet but should be just by nature of the cast; US rights are with eOne entertainment.

The Grand Jury prize, which is seen often as the ‘We almost picked this but not quite’ award, and goes to films that often find some prestige and acclaim on their own (past Grand Jury winners that come to mind are Oldboy, Broken Flowers, and last year’s Inside Llewyn Davis), went to The Wonders by Alice Rohrwacher.  A relatively new filmmaker – it’s her second feature following previous Cannes selection Corpo Celeste – and is a French/Italian character study about a group of sisters.  Monica Bellucci heads the cast.  Various international territories have been picked up, but no word on US/UK.

It may be confusing for some, but there is also another Jury prize at the festival, and this year the award was tied between two films: one is Xavier Dolan’s Mommy, which very much divided the Cannes crowd down the middle between ‘love it’ or ‘hate it’, and is the fifth film by the Quebec ‘enfant terrible’ who is only 25 years old.  It’s described on IMDb as “A widowed single mother, raising her violent son alone, finds new hope when a mysterious neighbor inserts herself into their household.”  Also no US or UK release date yet; for France it’s in October.

The other film was Jean-Luc Godard’s latest head-scratcher/revolutionary film Goodbye to Language, which was shot in 3D and can be best described as being about a lot of different subjects, including the director’s own dog, as Godard is want to do with his essay-visual style of filmmaking.  It’s been speculated this could be the final film by the84 year old icon of the French New-Wave, who is possibly the last of his group (i.e. Truffaut, Chabrol, Rivette, Rohmer) alive and/or working.   I expect I may plunk down the bucks to see it in 3D just out of curiosity.

Among the high-profile films that screened (and went home empty-handed) were Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut, Lost River, got by and large panned but has a deal set with Warner brothers anyway, and Asia Argento screened a film as director, Misunderstood, which both were part of the ‘Un Certain Regard’ category.  White God, by Kornél Mundruczó, won the prize in Un Certain Regard, and Wim Wenders went home with a special jury prize for a documentary called The Salt of the Earth about photographer Sebastião Salgado.

Lastly, other filmmakers appeared at the festival not in competition, such as Zhang Yimou with his film Coming Home starring Gong Li, and Quentin Tarantino who appeared to present both A Fistful of Dollars as part of a 50th anniversary screening to end the festival, and a 20th anniversary for his Palm D’Or winner Pulp Fiction.  He also had a press conference where he railed about the “death of cinema” with the overriding digital-only projection theaters (and actually Pulp Fiction was the only film screened this year ON film), and other things such as his plans for his next film The Hateful Eight.

The full list of winners are below; full list of the official selections can be seen here:

FEATURE FILMS

Palme d’or

WINTER SLEEP by Nuri Bilge CEYLAN

Grand Prix

LE MERAVIGLIE (The Wonders) by Alice ROHRWACHER

Best Director Award

Bennett MILLER for FOXCATCHER
Jury Prize ex-aequo

MOMMY by Xavier DOLAN
ADIEU AU LANGAGE (Goodbye to language) by Jean-Luc GODARD

Best Screenplay Award

Andrey ZVYAGINTSEV and Oleg NEGIN for LEVIATHAN

Best Actress Award

Julianne MOORE in MAPS TO THE STARS by David CRONENBERG

Best Actor Award

Timothy SPALL in MR. TURNER by Mike LEIGH

SHORT FILMS

Palme d’or  

LEIDI by Simón MESA SOTO

Special Mention – Ex-aequo

AÏSSA by Clément TREHIN-LALANNE
JA VI ELSKER (Yes we love) by Hallvar WITZØ

UN CERTAIN REGARD

Un Certain Regard Prize

FEHÉR ISTEN by Kornél Mundruczó
Jury Prize

TURIST by Ruben Östlund
Un Certain Regard Special Prize
THE SALT OF THE EARTH by Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado
Ensemble Prize

PARTY GIRL by Marie Amachoukeli, Claire Burger and Samuel Theis
Best Actor Award

David Gulpilil in CHARLIE’S COUNTRY by Rolf de Heer

CAMÉRA D’OR

PARTY GIRL by Marie AMACHOUKELI, Claire BURGER, Samuel THEIS presented in the Un Certain Regard Selection

CINÉFONDATION
First Prize
SKUNK by Annie Silverstein
University of Texas at Austin, USA
Second Prize
OH LUCY! by Atsuko Hirayanagi
NYU Tisch School of the Arts Asia, Singapore
Joint Third Prize
LIEVITO MADRE by Fulvio Risuleo
Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, Italy

THE BIGGER PICTURE by Daisy Jacobs
National Film and Television School, United Kingdom

The Jury of the CST has awarded the VULCAN AWARD OF THE TECHNICAL ARTIST to:

Dick POPE, director of photography, for bringing to light the works of Turner in the movie  MR. TURNER by Mike LEIGH