THE AWARDS FROM THE 71ST CANNES FILM FESTIVAL
The Cannes Film Fest closed Saturday with the presentation of awards. The winners were:
Main Competition:
Palme d'Or: Shoplifters
Grand Prix: BlacKkKlansman
Jury Prize: Capharnaum
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski-Cold War
Screenplay: Happy as Lazzaro and Three Faces
Actress: Samal Yeslyamova-Ayka
Actor: Marcello Fonte-Dogman
Special Palme: The Image Book
Here's the trailer for the Palme d'Or winner from YouTube:
Un Certain Regard:
UCR Prize: Border
Screenplay: Sofia
Best Performance: Victor Polster-Girl
Director: Sergei Loznitsa-Donbass
Special Jury Prize: The Dead and the Others
From among the Palme winners, I suspect every film is a potential TFF player at this point with the exception of Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman which Focus Features has set for release on Aug. 10th and I also have my doubts about Goddard's Image Book.
Another wrinkle is the acquisition of Happy as Lazzaro and Girl during the fest and, at this point, trying to divine what that will me for how those films get released and the implications for a possible Telluride play are difficult.
Netflix has been a presence at Telluride the past three years but that was prior to the brouhaha that played out in France this past few weeks that resulted in Netflix screening nothing in Cannes. How that factors into their plans heading to the fall and if it has a residual effect regarding TFF programmers...I don't know.
In addition to the Cannes acquisitions, Netflix also has Martin Scorsese's The Irishman which one would think would be a major player come awards season if it's done... and that's a BIG IF. And they also have Alfonso Cuaron's Roma and Orson Welles' The Other Side of the Wind (which I really believe will play TFF #45).
Stand by to hear what the Netflix plan is for releasing these acquisitions. Maybe that will give us some insight.
Here is the official list of winners from Cannes.
ANALYZING THE CANNES AWARDS HISTORY FOR TFF CLUES
Regular readers of this space probably know from past posts that the Cannes/Telluride crossover averages between seven and eight films each year. Most of those titles come from the main competition and Un Certain Regard sections that. Occasionally titles will come from some part of the non-competition slate or even the Directors Fortnight presentations.
So, as I have said, the Cannes/Telluride crossover is strong and has a lengthy history but the connection to the Cannes prize winners is fairly tenuous. Over the past decade, only three Palme d'Or winners have made the journey to Telluride: The White Ribbon ('10), Amour ('12) and Blue Is the Warmest Colour ('13).
Actually, in the last ten years, the film that wins the Grand Prix (second place essentially) is more likely to make the trip to the San Juans: Gomorrah ('08), A Prophet ('09), Of Gods and Men ('10), Inside Llewyn Davis ('13), Son of Saul ('15).
The other modestly successful predictor, weirdly, is Best Actor: Biutiful ('10), The Artist ('11), The Hunt ('12), Nebraska ('13), Mr. Turner ('14).
Other Cannes prizes and their TFF crossovers the past ten years are:
Jury Prize (third place): Fish Tank ('09), Loveless ('17)
Director: Foxcatcher ('14), Graduation ('16)
Actress: The Past ('13), Carol ('15)
Screenplay: Poetry ('10), Footnote ('11), Leviathan ('14)
UCR Prize: Tulpan ('08), Rams ('16), A Man of Integrity ('17)
This history suggests that the most likely Cannes plays for TFF #45 would be BlacKkKlansman but we know it won't be as it will be released three weeks before the festival which points us toward the Best Actor winner-Dogman. That has a real shot.
THE LAST ROUND-UP OF CRITICS FOR CANNES 2018
Here's the final critical assessment of films that played these last two weeks in Cannes beginning with the behemoth from Reini Urban:
Overall from all sections the top five films critically were:
1) Dead Souls
2) Burning
3) Thunder Road
4) Shoplifters
5) Happy as Lazarro
(Note: the short film Ultra Purple/Apocalypse After actually would sit at #4 but was scored by only five critics. Dead Souls was also only scored by 16 critics)
Top five from the Palme d'Or section:
1) Burning (8.10/10)
2) Shoplifters (7.67)
3) Happy as Lazarro (7.63)
4) The Wild Pear Tree (7.49)
5) Cold War (7.42)
Top three from the UCR section
1) Long Days Journey Into Night (7.40)
2) Girl (7.15)
3) The Dead and the Others (6.91)
Complete Reini Urban compilation of critics is linked here.
Todas Criticas...
Top Five from the Palme section:
1) Happy as Lazarro (8.31/10)
2) Burning (8.16)
3) The Image Book (8.13)
4) The Wild Pear Tree (7.44)
5) Ash Is The Purest White (7.23)
Top three in UCR:
1) Long Days Journey Into Night (7.98)
2) The Dead and the Others (7.17)
3) Girl (6.69)
The complete Todas Criticas board is here.
From Ioncinema's ratings of the Palme d'Or competition:
1) Burning (3.8/5-TIE)
1) The Wild Pear Tree (3.8)
3) Cold War (3.7)
4) Shoplifters (3.6)
5) Ash Is the Purest White (3.3 TIE)
5) Leto (3.3)
5) Three Faces (3.3)
The Ioncinema chart is here.
Screen Daily's grid at the completion of the Palme films:
1) Burning (3.8/4)
2) Shoplifters (3.2)
3) The Image Book (3.0)
4) Cold War (2.9 TIE)
4) Ash Is the Purest White (2.9)
4) Happy as Lazarro (2.9)
The Screen Daily grid is here.
The International Cinephile Society's ratings
Top five from the Palme d'Or comp:
1) Burning (4.50/5)
2) The Image Book (4.28)
3) Ash Is the Purest White (4.08)
4) Shoplifters (4.03)
5) Cold War (3.74)
The ICS critics' grid is here.
A COUPLE OF OTHER CANNES NOTES...
Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote has finally screened for live humans in a theater!!!
And now that it has...I can't say that I'm surprised that I have been seeing a number of reviews that have used words like "confused" and "missing a bit of soul". As I type (with a small number of reviews counted, RT has it at 57% and Metacritic has it at a 50.
It sounds like what I've come to expect from Gilliam...
Does that mean it's off the table for TFF #45? Can't say that yet.
Another note about the 71st Cannes: I was a little alarmed at how often I saw the phrase "slow burn" in takes about films that played...which I sometimes think is code for "it's slow but important".
Now that Cannes is in the books, I'll pay attention to acquisition news and release dates concerning these titles for additional TFF clues.
A FIRST LOOK AT BEAUTIFUL BOY
Felix Van Groeningen's Beautiful Boy will probably be on my first Ten Bets list (which is about six weeks away). From Amazon Studios, the film features Timothee Chalamet (Oscar nominated last year for Call Me By Your Name) and Steve Carell (Oscar nominated for Foxcatcher) as son and father dealing with the youngsters addiction to meth.
It's likely going to be a part of our conversations for the next several months.
That said, this week, we saw the first footage for the film via a 30 second teaser which is here from YouTube:
Additionally, here is coverage from Indiewire and The Playlist of the release of the teaser.
That's your MTFB for this Monday. Have a good week everyone...and more to come on Thursday.
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