The wait begins for Palme d’Or

For the first time in years, the winner won’t be a three-hour art-house epic

May 24, 2015 10:51 pm | Updated November 16, 2021 05:04 pm IST - CANNES (France):

Just what film directors Joel and Ethan Coen are thinking is a question that has long bedeviled moviegoers. Now they have the Cannes Film Festival on pins and needles, too.

The 68th Cannes Film Festival wraps up with an awards ceremony Sunday night that will bestow the coveted Palme d’Or on one of 19 films in competition. The decision is left to a jury, headed this year by the Coen brothers, who themselves won the Palme d’Or in 1991 for Barton Fink .

The favourites Among the favourites to capture Cannes’ top honour this year are the Hungarian Holocaust drama Son of Saul by first-time director Laszlo Nemes; Italian director Paolo Sorrentino’s wry mediation on aging in Youth ; Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s lavish martial arts drama The Assassin ; and American Todd Haynes’ ’50s lesbian romance Carol .

Others on the Cannes jury this year include Guillermo del Toro, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sienna Miller, Sophie Marceau, Xavier Dolan, Rokia Traore and Rossy de Palma.

One thing is for certain — for the first time in several years, the Palme d’Or winner won’t be a three-hour art-house epic.

The iconic award itself with its gold palm branch that was re-designed last year by Chopard is made of 18-carat “fairmined” gold, hand-cast in a plaster mould and fixed on a cushion of unique cut crystal.

On Saturday, Rams , a drama set among farmers and their sheep in a remote Icelandic valley, won the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard competition. It honours new directors and more offbeat films than the Palme d’Or.

Jury president Isabella Rossellini said Grimur Hakonarson’s film was honoured for “treating in a masterful, tragicomic way the undeniable bond that links all humans to animals.”

Its Jury Prize went to Croatian director Dalibor Matanic for Zvizdan (The High Sun), which explores love and ethnic hatred in the Balkans.

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