77th Cannes Film Festival Awards: ‘Anora’ Wins Palme d’Or, Four ‘Emilia Pérez’ Women Take Best Actress

Sean Baker’s sex worker drama-comedy-romance Anora has won the Palme d’Or at the 77th Cannes Film Festival. Baker is the first American filmmaker to take the top prize since Terrence Malick won for 2011’s The Tree of Life.

In her review of the film for AwardsWatch, Savina Petkova said, Anora is “is fun and frivolous” and “Mikey Madison’s magnetism seems endless and her soft voice can allure anyone into doing anything, really. However, she is ambitious and down-to-earth, only taking advantage of situations and people who deserve it.”

Anora‘s win marks an incredible run by young distributor NEON, earning its 5th Palme in a row after Parasite, Titane, Triangle of Sadness, and last year’s Anatomy of a Fall. Three went on to become Best Picture Oscar nominees (no Titane), with Parasite winning. Three Best Director Oscar nominations (again, no Titane), one win (Bong Jon-ho for Parasite), three screenplay nominations and two wins (Parasite and Anatomy of a Fall).

Jacques Audiard’s audacious Mexican drug cartel musical Emilia Pérez was a double winner, taking the festival’s Jury Prize and jury member Lily Gladstone revealing that the Best Actress award would be split among the film’s four leading and supporting ladies: Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz. This marked the first time multiple actresses had shared the prize in Cannes since the ensemble win for Volver in 2005 and also the first openly trans woman, Gascón, to win. She accepted on behalf of her co-stars and co-winners in a passionate and tearful speech of victory.

Jesse Plemons was named Best Actor for Yorgos Lanthimos’s Kinds of Kindness but was not there to accept his award. Coralie Fargeat’s buzzy body horror thriller The Substance, starring Demi Moore, earned the screenplay prize.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig received a special jury prize outside of the traditional awards, celebrating the bravery of director Mohammad Rasoulof for fleeing his native Iran where he had been arrested and sentenced to prison. The film examines paranoia and political unrest in Tehran as a man’s gun goes missing and he suspects his suspects his wife and daughters, imposing draconian measures that strain family ties as societal rules crumble.

Jury president Greta Gerwig presided over a majority-female jury comprised of Spanish director J. A. Bayona, Turkish actor-screenwriter Ebru Ceylan, Italian actor Pierfrancesco Favino, American actor Lily Gladstone, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, Lebanese actor-director Nadine Labaki and French actors Eva Green and Omar Sy.

The festival opened with an Honorary Palme for multi-award-winning legend Meryl Streep and closed with an Honorary Palme for filmmaker George Lucas, which was presented to him by Francis Ford Coppola, whose latest film Megalopolis, played in Competition.

COMPETITION

Palme d’Or: Anora by Sean Baker

Grand Prize: All We Imagine As Light by Payal Kapadia

Jury Prize: Emilia Pérez by Jacques Audiard

Director: Miguel Gomes for Grand Tour

Actor: Jesse Plemons for Kinds of Kindness

Actress: Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz for Emilia Pérez

Screenplay: The Substance by Coralie Fargeat

Special Prize: The Seed of the Sacred Fig by Mohammad Rasoulof

CAMERA D’OR

Armand by Halfdan Ullman Tøndel

Camera d’Or Special Mention: Mongrel by Chiang Wei Liang, You Qiao Yin

Short Film Palme d’Or: The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent by Nebojša Slijepčević

Short Film Special Mention: Bad for a Moment by Daniel Soares

Golden Eye Documentary Prize: Ernest Cole: Lost and Found and The Brink of Dreams

Queer Palm: Three Kilometers to the End of the World

Palme Dog: Kodi, “Palm Dog”

FIPRESCI Award (Competition): The Seed of the Sacred Fig by Mohammad Rasoulof

FIPRESCI Award (Un Certain Regard): The Story of Souleymane by Boris Lojkine

FIPRESCI Award (Parallel Sections): Desert of Namibia by Yoko Yamanaka

UN CERTAIN REGARD

Un Certain Regard Award: Black Dog by Guan Hu

Jury Prize: The Story of Souleymane by Boris Lojkine

Best Director Prize: (ex aequo) The Damned by Roberto Minervini; On Becoming a Guinea Fowl by Rungano Nyoni

Performance Awards: The Shameless for Anasuya Sengupta; The Story of Souleymane for Abou Sangare

Youth Prize: Holy Cow! (Vingt Dieux) by Louise Courvoisier

Special Mention: Norah by Tawfik Alzaidi

DIRECTORS’ FORTNIGHT

Europa Cinemas Label: The Other Way Around by Jonás Trueba

Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers Prize:  This Life of Mine by Sophie Fillières

Audience Choice Award: Universal Language by Matthew Rankin

CRITICS’ WEEK

Grand Prize: Simon of the Mountain by Federico Luis

French Touch Prize: Blue Sun Palace by Constance Tsang

GAN Foundation Award for Distribution: Jour2Fête, Julie Keeps Quiet

Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award: Ricardo Teodoro for Baby

Leitz Cine Discovery Prize (short film): Guil Sela for Montsouris Park