The Palme d’Or at the 71st Cannes Film Festival was handed to the understated Shoplifters by Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda. The filmmaker, who was taking part in the competition for the fifth time, had been awarded on two separate occasions (the Jury Prize in 2013 and via a Best Actor Award in 2004), and with this win, he brings a fifth Palme d’Or back to his home country. The prestigious Grand Prix was given to an excellent performance by North America, BlacKkKlansmanan by the USA’s Spike Lee.
European cinema had a heavy presence on the winners’ list at the 2018 edition of the gathering. A Special Palme d’Or popped up on the awards list for the very first time, singling out the incredible The Image Book by Switzerland’s Jean-Luc Godard.
The Best Director Award was quite rightly bestowed upon Poland’s Pawel Pawlikowski for Cold War, a movie staged by Poland (Opus Film), the UK (Apocalypso Pictures) and France.
Meanwhile, Italian cinema was rewarded twofold. The Best Actor Award served to Marcello Fonte in Matteo Garrone’s Dogman, a film produced by Archimede together with France’s Le Pacte, and sold by Rai. The Best Screenplay Award was attributed to Alice Rohrwacher for Happy as Lazzaro. Having previously won the Grand Prix in 2014 with The Wonders, the 36-year-old filmmaker thus continues her rise to the top, as this is only her third feature film.
European film production was also singled out via the Best Actress Award, which crowned Kazakhstan’s Samal Yeslyamova for her very physical performance in Ayka by Sergey Dvortsevoy. Also of note is the Jury Prize picked up by Capharnaüm by Lebanon’s Nadine Labaki.
