68th Festival de Cannes Award Winners

And the BIG winner of the night is ... (drums) French cinema!!! Which is not a surprise as this year there is a huge list of what could be great French films and some made it to Cannes, some got great reviews and some won top awards.

But when you carefully look at the list below you can also find another winner, a cinema that had NO films in the main competition but managed to be present in several sections and ... (drums) won awards! I'm talking about Latin American cinema with movies from Colombia, Argentina and Chile. Then there was also a Mexican director winning a top award.

There had to be a big looser and there was. Some say that the world doesn't care anymore about Italian cinema as this year press and jurors did not praise much the three Italian films in the main competition. I'm just going to say one thing, in my opinion there was one true film representative of great Italian cinema and film won one award, Mia Madre by Nanni Moretti. The other films were more international productions than Italian films. Still, the big looser was Italian cinema.

Most of us keep forgetting that all the buzz and fuzz generated around the festival is done by professionals, by media professionals, film critics and photo journalists. None of them have something to do with the artistry in filmmaking. On the opposite side jurors that decide awards are ALL artists intrinsically related to cinema. Jurors are judging their peers, judging with filmmakers eyes, not with critics or audiences eyes. So there had to be surprises or at least differences from what media says and what jurors honored. And gee, there were huge surprises.

Obviously the big surprise was the film honored with the top award, which press received with lukewarm reactions; so much, that confused me and still up to this moment I don't know what to think about movie and won't be able to tell until after I see movie. Am I glad they gave the Palme d'Or to Dheepan? Yes I am, as I prefer to think that the honor was given to Jacques Audiard and it was time he got this award that he deserved since The Prophet. It was so funny as in Audiard's speech he said exactly what I was thinking, he thank Michael Haneke for not having a film in Cannes this year (LOL). I know this is a different jury and most likely is not the reason why they chose to give him the award, but gee, he deserves the Cannes top award and he now has it!

The second big surprise was Cate Blanchett being snubbed and Rooney Mara winning the Best Actress award ex-aequo with Emmanuelle Bercot. Think this jury could have made history if they would have given the award to the three actresses! With La Vie d'Adele history was made as film and the two actresses got a Palme d'Or.

Most press spontaneous reactions via social media were quite funny as truth is that many were expecting The Assassin or Carol to win top award and both film teams were in the theater. So they were (very) disappointed that their predictions didn't became a reality. Then later on and in the next day articles started to appear about Son of Saul deserving the top award. But I don't understand much all the fuzz as all three films plus the other film with much buzz, the Lobster, won something ... not what everyone was expecting but at least something.

So film journalists did not influence at all jurors in Cannes, but even before Sunday they started to influence the American award season, as they believe that some films, directors and actors will be honored during the long and prolific American awards season. Then some colleagues started to predict country submissions to Oscars 2016. Me, I will rest for a while as still are very tired after this year Cannes exercise plus we still have Venice fest and maybe many of the French films that didn't made it to Cannes will be in La Mostra, which makes me recall that there are a couple of Italian films (in Italian) that hopefully will premiere at la Biennale.

Last, France takes its cinema seriously, so much that even France's President congratulated all French winners via an official release. But to be honest almost every country that won something last Sunday had government officials congratulating the winners, but none was from the country's President. (lol)

At the post end you will find the video with the full closing ceremony. The video is also available at the fest official site here, but Canal+ has better servers and video flows smoothly.

So this is it. Cannes is over, even for me. See you next year.

Main Competition

Palme d'Or: Dheepan, Jacques Audiard, France

Grand Prix: Saul Fia (Son of Saul), László Nemes, Hungary
Jury Award: The Lobster, Yorgos Lanthimos, Greece, UK, Ireland, Netherlands and France

Best Director: Hou Hsiao-Hsien for 聂隐娘 Nie Yin niang (The Assassin), Taiwan
Best Screenplay: Michel Franco for Chronic, USA

Best Actress: (tie) Rooney Mara in Carol and Emmanuelle Bercot in Mon Roi
Best Actor: Vincent Landon in La loi du marché (Measure of a Man), Stéphane Brizé, France

Camera d'Or: La Tierra y la sombra (Land and Shade), César Augusto Acevedo, Colombia, France, Netherlands, Chile and Brazil

Short Films
Palme d'Or: موج '٩٨ Waves '98, Ely Dagher, Lebanon and Qatar

Un Certain Regard

Un Certain Regard Prize:  Hrútar (Rams), Grímur Hákonarson, Iceland
Un Certain Regard Jury Prize: Zvizdan (The High Sun), Dalibor Matanić, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia
Un Certain Talent: Comoara (The Treasure), Corneliu Porumboiu, Romania and France
Un Certain Regard Award for Best Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa for 岸辺の旅 Kishibe no tabi (Journey to the Shore), Japan
Un Certain Regard Prix de l'Avenir: (tie)
Masaan (Fly Away Solo), Neeraj Ghaywan, India
ناهید Nahid, Ida Panahandeh, Iran

Quinzaine des Réalisateurs (Directors' Fortnight)

Feature Films
SACD Prize: Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse (My Golden Days), Arnaud Desplechin, France
CICAE Arte Cinema Prize: El Abrazo de la Serpiente (Embrace of the Serpent), Ciro Guerra, Colombia, Venezuela and Argentina
Label Europa Cinema Prize: Mustang, Deniz Gamze Ergüven, France, Germany and Turkey

Short Films
Illy Prize: Rate Me, Fyzal Boulifa, UK, 15'
Special Mention: The Exquisite Corpus, Peter Tscherkassky, Austria, 18'

Semaine de la Critique (Critic's Week)

Feature Films
Grand Prix: Paulina (La Patota), Santiago Mitre, Argentina, Brasil and France
Visionary Award: La Tierra y la sombra (Land and Shade), César Augusto Acevedo, Colombia, France, Netherlands, Chile and Brazil
SACD Award: La Tierra y la sombra (Land and Shade), César Augusto Acevedo, Colombia, France, Netherlands, Chile and Brazil
Gan Foundation Support for Distibution Award: Ni le ciel, ni la terre (The Wakhan Front), Clément Cogitore, France and Belgium

Short Films
Canal+ Award: Ramona, Andrei Cretulescu, Romania
Sony CineAlta Discovery Prize: Varicella (Chickenpox), Fulvio Risuleo, Italy

Cinéfondation

First Prize: Share, Pippa Bianco, USA
Second Prize: Locas Perdidas (Lost Queens), Ignacio Juricic Merillán, Chile
Third Prize (tie)
Victor XX, Ian Garrido López, Spain
Возвращение Эркина Vozvrasheinie Erkina (The Return of Erkin), Maria Guskova, Russia,

Collateral Awards

FIPRESCI Awards
Main Competition:
Un Certain Regard: Masaan (Fly Away Solo), Neeraj Ghaywan, India
Semaine de la Critique: Paulina (La Patota), Santiago Mitre, Argentina, Brasil and France

Ecumenical Jury Award: Mia Madre, Nanni Moretti, Italy, Germany and France
Special Mentions
La loi du marché (A Simple Man), Stéphane Brizé, France
Taklub (Trap), Brillante Mendoza, Philippines

L'Oeil d'Or: Allende mi abuelo Allende, Marcia Tambutti, Chile and Mexico
Special Mention: Jag Är Ingrid (Ingrid Bergman, in Her Own Words), Stig Björkman, Sweden

Queer Palm: Carol, Todd Haynes, UK and USA
Short Film Queer Palm: Locas Perdidas (Lost Queens), Ignacio Juricic Merillán, Chile

Cannes Soundtrack Award: Lim Gion for music in 聂隐娘 Nie Yin niang (The Assassin), Hou Hsiao Hsien

Vulcan Award of the Technical Artist: Tamas Sanyi for Saul Fia (Son of Saul), László Nemes, Hungary

uniFrance Short Films Awards
Prix du Court Métrage: Errance by Peter Dourountizis, France
Prix Canal+ Espagne: Le Repas Dominical (Sunday Lunch), Céline Devaux, France
Prix RTI Italie: Ses Souffles by Just Philippot, France

Cannes Ecran Juniors Grand Prix: A Brilliant Young Mind (aka X+Y), Morgan Matthews, UK

Palm Dog: Lucky in As Mil e Uma Noites (Arabian Nights) by Miguel Gomes

Award Ceremony

Cannes 2015 - Cérémonie de clôture - Intégrale

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5/24/15
Will comment a bit later ... but I'm laughing hard with social media comments from UK and US film critics... LOL!!! Took a lot more than a bit but today will finish this post.