The winners at the 77th Cannes Film Festival (France) were announced on May 25.
Palme d’Or
- The top prize of the festival — Palme d’Or — went to Sean Baker‘s film Anora, a tragic story of a sex worker.
- No film can win any other award apart from the Palme d’Or, such as those for Best Actor or Best Screenplay, since it is considered the pinnacle of prizes across categories.
- Palme d’Or is given to the director of the Best Feature Film of the Official Competition.
- Jesse Plemons, won the best actor award for Kinds of Kindness.
Grand Prix
- Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light bagged the Grand Prix, the second-highest award at the Cannes Film Festival.
- The film, the story of two Kerala nurses living in contemporary Mumbai, was the first Indian film in 30 years to compete in the main competition at Cannes.
- It stars Indian actors Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha and Chhaya Kadam.
- The only Indian film to ever win the Palme d’Or — then known as Grand Prix du Festival International du Film — is Chetan Anand’s Neecha Nagar (1946). Mrinal Sen’s domestic help drama Kharij won the Jury Prize in 1983.
La Cinef section
- Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) student Chidananda S Naik bagged the first prize in the La Cinef section for ‘Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know’. It is a 15-minute short film based on a Kannada folklore. India-born Mansi Maheshwari’s ‘Bunnyhood’, an animated film, bagged the third prize.
Pierre Angénieux Tribute Award
- Cinematographer Santosh Sivan became the first Asian to be awarded the Pierre Angénieux Tribute Award, with recognition for his “career and exceptional quality of work”.
Un Certain Regard category
- Additionally, Anasuya Sengupta became the first Indian to win the Best Actress prize in ‘The Shameless’ in the Un Certain Regard category.
- Un Certain Regard (meaning ‘a certain glance’) is a section of the festival’s official selection. It has its own jury and is meant to award young talent and “encourage innovative and audacious works”
