Who will win the Palme at Cannes? [2023 edition]

Also, Victor Erice has a new film premiering (out of competition)

The Ceylan is apparently four hour long

JEUNESSE (Wang Bing; France)

More like, well if Ostlund is heading this..

this is crazy https://t.co/6OXE8XGCqA pic.twitter.com/5X8Q76fRRY

— Ryan Swen/孫天行/Sun Tianxing (@swen_ryan) April 13, 2023

this does seem a little like the 'old man directors on their last legs' Cannes festival.

voting for Club Zero. I really liked the last three films from Jessica Hausner - (Lourdes, Amour Fou, and Little Joe) and they were all different

alternative vote would be for Alice Rohrwacher's La Chimera. her The Wonders is one of my favorite films of all time

(and to correct the typo, the Ceylan is About Dry Grasses lol)

By ‘old man’ I’m thinking of Moretti, Loach, Wenders, and Bellocchio. They have all have had several films that have been entered into competition over the years. Loach I think has been in competition 13 or 14 times (!), Moretti and Wenders 8 times each, and Bellocchio 7 times. Three of them have already won the Palme d’Or (Loach twice) and Bellocchio won an honorary Palme d’Or

What a boring line-up.

Has Wenders made a good (fiction) film since the 1980s?

Moretti, yawn. "The film’s themes include the cinema, the circus, the 1950s." Italian films + Circus + films about films + nostalgia = no, please, no.

Loach, yawn.

Tran film is a "French historical romantic drama". Snooze. Maybe it will at least be pretty. Cyclo was a long time ago.

Bellocchio and the Vatican + true crime again?

Interested in Glazer but wary of premise + Amis.

Erice has his 1st movie in three decades and it premieres out of competition?

Voting for Alice Rohrwacher.

and speaking of previous winners, we also have Kore-eda, Ceylan and Haynes (who not only won the Palme d’Or for Elephant] but also Best Director. I think they changed the rules after that)

I watched Tran's the Scent of Green Papaya again recently, it is from 30 years ago but I still think it is pretty great

Elephant was by Gus van Sant

"What a boring line-up."

A Cannes film festival tradition!

I'd love to see a Haynes-directed Elephant.

seriously i thought Wenders was dead

was gently intrigued at the prospect of a new Jonathan Glazer until i realised the source material

Err, they're always the first screenings at Cannes

― Ward Fowler, Thursday, 13 April 2023 14:55 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Didn't know this. I'm pretty new to this whole film thing.

Anyway I'm most interested in the Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Hirokazu Kore-eda.

xxxp oh that's right, sorry

There are still many films from last year’s main competition that are not available for streaming or purchase in the US, as far as I can see: The Eight Mountains, Forever Young, Leila’s Brothers, Mother and Son, Nostalgia, Pacifiction, The Boy From Heaven (renamed Cairo Conspiracy), Brother and Sister, R.M.N., Tchaikovsky’s Wife, and Tori and Lokita

Discover the 55th selection of Directors' Fortnight !

Find the complete program on our website https://t.co/AjqPXKaA0B

Following the Cannes Film Festival, watch the 2023 Selection between June 7 and 18 in about 30 arthouse cinemas in France.#TheFortnightExtended pic.twitter.com/EhwCZnv2KH

— Quinzaine des Cinéastes (@Quinzaine) April 18, 2023

Includes Hong's 13th film in approximately the last 35 minutes.

French Director Catherine Corsini’s Film Was Removed From Cannes Competition After Complaints https://t.co/MqDaaG1iij

— Variety (@Variety) April 18, 2023

Loach odds just shortened https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/ken-loach-final-film-the-old-oak-retirement-1235399975/amp/

Ken Loach becoming the most Palme-awarded filmmaker seems very plausible

regarding Catherine Corsini’s Le Retour

“After festival head Thierry Fremaux had initially said the film would be in Competition, Corsini’s film was pulled from the Official Selection announcement on April 13 following allegations that the director had harassed crew members on set. The festival said it would investigate the allegations before coming to a decision on the film, which it has now chosen to include.”

https://www.highonfilms.com/cannes-2023-14-new-titles-added-to-the-76th-edition-of-the-festival/

Jean-Stephane Sauvaire’s Black Flies, about a young paramedic in NYC, starring Katherine Waterston, Michael Pitt, and Sean Penn (of course) was also a late addition to the line-up

and speaking of Catherine Corsini, her Cannes Competition film La Fracture (The Divide) from two years ago, which won the Queer Palm, is still not available in the US

Cannes Jury Unveiled: Paul Dano, Brie Larson, Maryam Touzani Join President Ruben Ostlund https://t.co/Jbrzo0T83A

— Variety (@Variety) May 4, 2023

Jury members include: actors Paul Dano and Brie Larson, Moroccan director Maryam Touzani, French actor Denis Ménochet, British-Zambian screenwriter and director Rungano Nyoni, Afghan author Atiq Rahimi, Argentinian director and screenwriter Damián Szifrón and director Julia Ducournau, who won the Palme d’Or in 2021 for her film “Titane.”

voting Rohrwacher, as of all the directors here who's work I most enjoy/am familiar with (also incl Glazer, Hausner, Kore-eda, Ceylan) her film sounds the most intriguing to me

Confirmed: Jean Luc-Godard’s “final” film PHONY WARS will world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. https://t.co/zDuitagUk6 pic.twitter.com/6GHNNpit7d

— Reel Updates (@worldofreel) May 5, 2023

As far as the WGA strike goes, "WGA writers on Cannes-bound films will not be allowed to promote their movies — the guild clearly states that members are “prohibited from making promotional appearances” while the strike continues — but writer-directors, like Wes Anderson, in Cannes competition with Asteroid City, and Martin Scorsese, whose Killers of the Flower Moon will have its out-of-competition world premiere on the Croisette, will be able to attend the festival and hold press conferences in their capacity as directors. Their co-writers, however — Roman Coppola on Asteroid City, Eric Roth and David Grann on Killers — will be expected to stay home, or at least not take part in any official promotion activities in Cannes."

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/writers-strike-cannes-2023-1235479667/

The #Cannes2023 schedule is now live, including runtimes for all films: https://t.co/YrxWuvhs0H pic.twitter.com/JMTk5qvIZB

— The Film Stage 📽 (@TheFilmStage) May 10, 2023

I've never looked a Cannes screening schedule before...interesting that most films in competition have two screenings except for the last two (Loach and Rohrwacher) and Asteroid City, which merits three for some reason.

Wang Bing's Youth (Spring), at 3h32m, and Ceylan's About Dry Grasses, at 3h17m, both appear early in the festival while people are still fresh, and both also get only one screening, which is understandable.

In addition to Asteroid City, Hausner's Club Zero also gets three!

In Un Certain Regard there is only one screening for each film

It begins (soon)

The Cannes Film Festival kicks off tomorrow and there is excitement in the air.

Preparations are well under way #CannesFilmFestival#Cannes pic.twitter.com/S0qEZeFtM4

— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) May 15, 2023

Look at that excitement.

Here's your excitement:

#Cannes chief Thierry Fremaux told journalists at a press conference: "If you thought that it’s a festivals for rapists, you wouldn’t be here listening to me, you would not be complaining that you can’t get tickets to get into screenings.” https://t.co/gwggXBKuBw

— Variety (@Variety) May 15, 2023

Oh là là!

Polanski’s been to Cannes plenty hasn’t he, it’s hardly some Rubicon.

#Cannes2023 kicks off tomorrow. Current market-leaders for the Palme d'Or:
1. Alice Rohrwacher (9/2)
2. Kaouther Ben Hania (5/1)
3. Marco Bellocchio (11/2)
4. Jessica Hausner (9/1)
5. Jonathan Glazer (10/1)
full odds: https://t.co/RyfO91qAIG pic.twitter.com/BFruHTA1AV

— Нил Юнг (@BohemiaStable) May 15, 2023

don't know much about Kaouther Ben Hania, should watch The Man Who Sold His Skin

The Johnny Depp costume drama being shit is no surprise, but this ...

Ummmmm this is terrible. McQueen's first dud. It's literally the most bone dry voiceover nonstop reading Wikipedia entries about the German Nazi occupation of Amsterdam on top of Instagram Video footage of the city during the pandemic. That's it. Museum cinema at its most boring. https://t.co/nDtJhHIWz4

— Alex B. @ #Cannes2023 🍥 (@firstshowing) May 17, 2023

Almodóvar’s 30-minute “Strange Way of Life” isn’t worth waiting an hour in the rain to see, but Ethan Hawke is the perfect vessel for a Wild West “Pain and Glory” — an American actor zoned in on this specific wavelength of conflicted rage and quiet longing. #Cannes2023

— Siddhant Adlakha (@SiddhantAdlakha) May 17, 2023

LOL, missed this until now: https://www.thewrap.com/cannes-film-festival-jury-deliberations-coppola-xavier-dolan/

2015: The famously outspoken (and occasionally bratty) Canadian director Xavier Dolan has been competing at Cannes since he was a teenager, so it’s natural that the festival asked him to serve on the jury two years ago. But Dolan was apparently not the most congenial panelist, getting on some of his fellow jurors’ nerves as he lobbied feverishly — and perhaps rudely — for his favorites and against the likes of Todd Haynes’ subdued love story “Carol.” At the jury press conference that followed the awards ceremony, Dolan said, “I somehow feel like a better person.” Sitting nearby, jury co-president Ethan Coen audibly muttered, “You’re not.”

Found linked in this: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/05/cannes-film-festival-controversies

But the tension between audience and jury was never higher than in 1999, when Pedro Almodóvar’s All About My Mother was the unquestioned odds-on favorite to win the Palme. The crowd’s reaction to the David Cronenberg–led jury winners—which included awarding three prizes to Bruno Dumont’s L’Humanité—was so increasingly incensed that Roger Ebert deemed the ceremony “carnage.” When Almodóvar was awarded best director, the crowd gave a standing ovation. But the worst of the crowd’s ire was reserved for the downbeat Palme winner, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Rosetta, reportedly including booing its star Émilie Dequenne as she tearfully accepted her best-actress trophy. Cronenberg later said that it was not only a unanimous decision, but that he was told it was the fastest deliberation to the Palme in Cannes history; the Dardennes have become Cannes mainstays since, with many of their films earning a Cannes prize.

I do remember American critics in particular deciding pretty quickly that L'Humanité was the devil, and Owen G. angrily putting Rosetta at the top of his worst movies of the year list.

Rosetta is great!

I get wanting to give Almodovar that Palme, and it makes total sense. But beyond that and the actual winners, '99 ... just wasn't that great a competition year:

8½ Women by Peter Greenaway
All About My Mother (Todo sobre mi madre) by Pedro Almodóvar
Cradle Will Rock by Tim Robbins
The Emperor and the Assassin (Jing Ke ci Qin Wang) by Chen Kaige
Felicia's Journey by Atom Egoyan
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai by Jim Jarmusch
Humanité (L'humanité) by Bruno Dumont
Kadosh by Amos Gitai
Kikujiro (Kikujirô no natsu) by Takeshi Kitano
The Letter (La lettre) by Manoel de Oliveira
Limbo by John Sayles
Love Will Tear Us Apart (Tin seung yan gaan) by Nelson Yu Lik-wai
Moloch (Molokh) by Alexander Sokurov
The Nanny (La balia) by Marco Bellocchio
No One Writes to the Colonel (El coronel no tiene quien le escriba) by Arturo Ripstein
Our Happy Lives (Nos vies heureuses) by Jacques Maillot
Pola X by Leos Carax
Rosetta by Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
The Straight Story by David Lynch
Tales of Kish (Ghessé hayé kish) by Abolfazl Jalili, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Nasser Taghvai
Time Regained (Le temps retrouvé, d'après l'oeuvre de Marcel Proust) by Raúl Ruiz
Wonderland by Michael Winterbottom

Compare to 2000:

Bread and Roses by Ken Loach
Chunhyangdyun by Kwon-taek Im
Code inconnu: Récit incomplet de divers voyages by Michael Haneke
Dancer in the Dark by Lars von Trier
Esther Kahn by Arnaud Desplechin
Estorvo by Ruy Guerra
Fast Food Fast Women by Amos Kollek
Gohatto by Nagisa Oshima
Guizi lai le by Jiang Wen
Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien by Dominik Moll
In the Mood for Love by Wong Kar-wai
Kippur by Amos Gitai
Les destinées sentimentales by Olivier Assayas
Nurse Betty by Neil LaBute
O Brother, Where Art Thou? by Joel Coen
Svadba by Pavel Lungin
Sånger från andra våningen by Roy Andersson
Takhté siah by Samira Makhmalbaf
The Golden Bowl by James Ivory
The Yards by James Gray
Trolösa by Liv Ullmann
Yi Yi by Edward Yang
Yurîka by Shinji Aoyama

i love Kikujiro so much

but yeah 2000 is some year

Gonna be a tough red carpet act to follow:

✨ Montée des Marches de KAIBUTSU
(MONSTER) de KORE-EDA HIROKAZU
-
✨ Red Steps of KAIBUTSU
(MONSTER) by KORE-EDA HIROKAZU #Cannes2023 #Competition #OfficialSelection

With the team of STRANGE WAY OF LIFE by Pedro Almodóvar pic.twitter.com/METXRByXAJ

— Festival de Cannes (@Festival_Cannes) May 17, 2023

Damn, I just realized this site is dead: https://cannes-ratings.herokuapp.com/

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

LAST SUMMER [L'été dernier] (Catherine Breillat; France)	3

I think I voted for this one to win, and some of the early reviews suggest that wasn't necessarily a maniacal mistake

It's a remake of the Danish film Queen of Hearts, and the original is pretty great.

Wim Wenders’ ‘Perfect Days’ scores well on Screen’s #Cannes2023 jury grid; ‘Last Summer’ also lands https://t.co/CPkrcQZv2l pic.twitter.com/5l6Dga657S

— Screen International (@Screendaily) May 26, 2023

Palme alert! Right before we hit the final day of Competition films, we have two new top scores on our #Cannes2023 grid. Check it out here: https://t.co/XYEFp6yt7o pic.twitter.com/83iGh1FgXj

— IntlCinephileSociety (@ICSfilm) May 25, 2023

Solid reception on the Rohrwacher, too:

The best film at Cannes 2023, Alice Rohrwacher’s tomb-raider drama LA CHIMERA is an earthy, dreamy fable about the gravesites we all walk over every day. It doesn’t belong in a museum, it’s a living one. Review for @LWLies:https://t.co/IX5WnjX8je

— Mark Asch (@MarkAschParody) May 26, 2023

Awards so far:

Un Certain Regard Prize: How to Have Sex by Molly Manning Walker
Un Certain Regard Jury Prize: Hounds by Kamal Lazraq
Un Certain Regard Best Director: The Mother of All Lies by Asmae El Moudir
International Critics’ Week Grand Prize: Tiger Stripes by Amanda Nell Eu
Directors’ Fortnight Best European Film: Creatura by Elena Martín Gimeno
Palm Dog Award: Messi as Snoop in Anatomy of a Fall,
Grand Jury Prize: Alma in Fallen Leaves

in these sidebars, the film that sounds most impressive to me is Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell by Pham Thien An in Direcors’ Fortnight, which is eligible for the Camera d’Or

The Zone of Interest got a kicking from quite a few French critics, who are firmly behind Anatomy of a Fall

PALMOMÈTRE #Cannes2023
Anatomie d'une chute / Les feuilles mortes ex æquo en tête.
Merci à Ariane Allard, @StephBelpeche, @OlivierBruyn, Olivia Cooper-Hadjian, Alexis Demeyer, @malouduponchel, @JMFrodon, @maringerard_, @JeanJacky, @MMaestracci, @Amandiine & @philippe_rouyer pic.twitter.com/jkcOVbFhUG

— CHAOS (@chaosreignfr) May 26, 2023

If anyone cares to watch the Cannes awards ceremony today:

Red carpet (1:30pm EST) here https://t.co/y5jrjqwtd6

Ceremony (2:30pm EST) here https://t.co/wCYjleFgg4

— C.J. Prince (@cj_prin) May 27, 2023

If anyone cares to watch the Cannes awards ceremony today:

Red carpet (1:30pm EST) here https://t.co/y5jrjqwtd6

Ceremony (2:30pm EST) here https://t.co/wCYjleFgg4

— C.J. Prince (@cj_prin) May 27, 2023

In the Official Selection: THE ZONE OF INTEREST by Jonathan GLAZER (USA, UK, Poland, 2023), "for its formal radicality, the complexity of the sound and score, and its contrast between the invisible atrocities behind the wall and a supposed paradise." (2/5) pic.twitter.com/a7Odgx48sQ

— FIPRESCI (@FIPRESCI) May 27, 2023

From calling Godard out as a rotten man to this:

Cannes reveals Jane Fonda will present the Palme d’Or winner tonight

— Gregory Ellwood - The Playlist 🎬 (@TheGregoryE) May 27, 2023

From another board…

Even though it got largely negative reviews, Club Zero is produced by Philippe Bober, who has produced Ostlund's films for the past decade, so I would expect an award for it. Also Jessica Hausner is reportedly still in town.

Messi was a shoo in for Palme d’Og

Sandra Hüller was just spotted at Nice airport!
As the Lord intended! Please @neonrated, start working on her Oscar Best Actress campaign now!#JusticeforToniErdmann #Cannes2023 #AnatomyofaFall

— Cédric Succivalli (@OnTheLido) May 27, 2023

I'm going
Palme: Fallen Leaves
Grand Prix: Anatomy of a Fall
Director: Jonathan Glazer

Palme = Anatomy of a Fall

The top 4 (Palme + 2 runners up + director) almost exactly match overall critical acclaim. Which seems wildly out of character for these awards.

Acting awards were kind of curveballs tho

will it be another french winner that nobody remembers? the class, dardennes, etc

Sure, if you say so

Curious about Pot-au-Feu only because I loved Tran Anh Hung's first 3 films but haven't seen any since. He shoots food very well, so I'm open to it despite its NPR-core summary.

"people eat food and not much happens" is exactly what I need from a movie these days

Swap “eat” for “make” and you have OXHIDE II

oh wow Oxhide sounds fantastic

I was distracted by visiting family and didn’t pay attention to the ending of this, but all of the films they awarded this year sound really good. Sandra Hüller wasn't given an award but I guess everyone knows she ruled here this year

In announcing the acting prizes this year it seems like they wanted to acknowledge two great films that weren't otherwise awarded - About Dry Grasses by Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Perfect Days by Wim Wenders

Sandra Hüller said about Glazer and Triet:

“Both are so focused on what they do. Some directors are a bit manipulative and don't give you all the information you need for a character, but with these two everything was on the table - what they wanted to achieve, what they wanted to tell."

Forgot she was in that film, Sibyl. Would gladly watch again.

Top 3 from our 2023 Cannes Critics’ Panel. #1. 🇬🇧 The Zone of Interest (3.9). #2. 🇫🇮 Fallen Leaves (3.7). #3. Alice Rohrwacher's 🇮🇹 La Chimera & Justine Triet's 🇫🇷 Anatomie d’une chute (3.5).https://t.co/fCjYtit60N pic.twitter.com/IcZ0pQzf60

— IONCINEMA (@ioncinema) May 29, 2023

The rest:

Ken Loach’s The Old Oak – 3.44
Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days 3.34
Todd Haynes’ May December – 3.32
Wang Bing’s Youth (Spring) 3.27
Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses 3.26
Tran Anh Hung’s The Pot au Feu 3.22
Kore-eda Hirokazu’s Monster 3.21
Marco Bellocchio’s Kidnapped – 3.19
Catherine Breillat’s L’été dernier 3.08
Nanni Moretti’s Il sol dell’avvenire 3.05
Kaouther Ben Hania’s Les filles d’Olfa – 2.84
Catherine Corsini’s Le retour 2.67
Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s Banel et Adama – 2.60
Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City – 2.45
Karim Aïnouz’s Firebrand – 2.4
Jessica Hausner’s Club Zero – 2.3
Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s Black Flies 1.94

Aw. looks like La Chimera just missed!

Very coincidentally, but speaking of Oxhide:

14 years after the director's previous feature OXHIDE II, Liu Jiayin's ALL EARS will premiere at the upcoming Shanghai International Film Festival, beginning June 9. https://t.co/iKqWTOfyAw

— Notebook (@NotebookMUBI) May 30, 2023

Liked this write-up, and how bad attending the thing seems to be.

https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/at-cannes?pc=1517

there doesn’t seem to be a triet thread, but I saw ANATOMY OF A FALL yesterday and thought the majority of it was very good in its exploration of marriage and relationship, the nature and limits of compromise, “gender roles” etc — the last third is a bit of a letdown I thought, it seemed like triet couldn’t quite figure out how to resolve it

My wife thought it was pretty obvious that Daniel was lying about the conversation he claims to have had with his dad, which I thought was a really convincing reading I didn’t consider in the moment, wondering what you thought

That occurred to me, too, and I think it's a persuasive interpretation. The key scene is when Marge tells him he needs to "decide," which she says is different from making up a belief, but still suggests that he has some agency in guiding things. Maybe the conversation with his dad did happen in some form, but he decides to frame it to the court as a sign that his dad was suicidal.

heh. my girlfriend and I had, shall we say, very different interpretations of the conflict — which I think is more or less the point of the film

from this thread it seems there's no chance we can predict the Palme winner ahead of time, but I'm looking forward to a new poll for 2024 from Eric H, maybe when the last few entries are in place

as of now the films chosen are

“All We Imagine as Light,” Payal Kapadia
“Anora,” Sean Baker
“The Apprentice,” Ali Abbasi
“Bird,” Andrea Arnold
“Caught by the Tides” (“Feng Liu Yi Dai”), Jia Zhang-Ke
“Emilia Perez,” Jacques Audiard
“The Girl With the Needle,” Magnus von Horn
“Grand Tour,” Miguel Gomes
“Kinds of Kindness,” Yorgos Lanthimos
“L’Amour Ouf,” Gilles Lellouche
“Limonov: The Ballad,” Kirill Serebrennikov
“Marcello Mio,” Christophe Honoré
“Megalopolis,” Francis Ford Coppola
“Motel Destino,” Karim Aïnouz
“Oh, Canada,” Paul Schrader
“Parthenope,” Paolo Sorrentino
“The Shrouds,” David Cronenberg
“The Substance,” Coralie Fargeat
“Wild Diamond” (“Diamant Brut”), Agathe Riedinger

Yeah, I figured maybe as well wait til week of given how often titles get added

Early odds, fwiw:

https://www.jigsawlounge.co.uk/film/reviews/cannes-2024/

I presict the new Copppla will eithet be a masterpiece or an embarrassing fail. Nothing in the middle.
And if it's a masterpiece, it will win.

I liked Ali Abbasi's Border, which won Un Certain Regard in 2018, and haven't yet seen Holy Spider, which won the Cannes Best Actress award in 2022.

I just can't abide any new story now about Trump though, especially from a European perspective.

Unless it is very next level, which it won't be, The Apprentice sounds awful, and if it wins anything I will be upset. Enough with the mythologizing

We absolutely consider Ali Abbasi to be Danish, but he was born and raised in Iran, and still holds an Iranian passport, so if you want, you can consider it a Middle Eastern / Persian perspective, I guess.

Just watched "La Chimera". At the moment just savoring the echoes of early Bertolucci as well as Pasolini - off the top of my head - and what landscape and history mean in terms of a nation's sense of self. A strange and sometimes joyful film but the melancholy hangs heavy. Something to think about over the coming days. Rohrwacher is a filmmaker who really fascinates me.