Cannes 2017 Winners: The Square wins the Palme, Nicole Kidman given 70th anniversary prize

Erik Anderson May 27, 2017

The Square, from Ruben Östlund, wins the Palme D’Or at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival

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Ruben Östlund’s satirical drama The Square has won the Palme D’Or of the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. The tale of crime and revenge was bought by Magnolia Pictures for US distribution. It was a bit of an upset as most had predicted the 90s era AIDS drama 120 Battements par minute (Beats Per Minute) to win the top award. That film settled for the de facto 2nd place, Grand Prize of the Jury. Jury president Pedro Almódovar seemed visibly shaken when announcing the win, as if he was possibly overruled by the jury.

Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here, which only finished its final cut days before screening, won two awards. It tied in Screenplay with The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos) and won the Best Actor award for Joaquin Phoenix. Phoenix was shocked by the win, apologizing for wearing Converse sneakers with his tuxedo.

Sofia Coppola was a bit of a surprise announcement for Best Director for The Beguiled as she was not called back to the red carpet, which usually means that film or person isn’t winning. It was a great comeback for her after 2006 Cannes In Competition film Marie Antoinette was met with boos from the French critics. Coppola is only the second woman to win the Cannes directing award in the 70 years of the festival. The first was the Soviet director Yuliya Ippolitovna Solntseva in 1961 for The Story of the Flaming Years.

Diane Kruger won Best Actress for In the Fade, another film about crime and revenge and the Jury Prize went to Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Loveless.

A special juried prize for the 70th anniversary of the festival went to Nicole Kidman, who thanked the audience via video message from Nashville. Kidman dominated the festival with two films in competition (The Beguiled, The Killing of a Sacred Deer – both winners), plus How to Talk to Girls at Parties and the presentation of the television show Top of the Lake: China Girl.

Here is the full list of winners of the 2017 Cannes Film Festival:

In Competition

PALME D’OR
The Square (Ruben Östlund)

GRAND PRIZE OF THE JURY
120 Battements par minute (Robin Campillo)

JURY PRIZE
Loveless (Andrey Zvyagintsev)

ACTOR
Joaquin Phoenix (You Were Never Really Here)

ACTRESS
Diane Kruger (In the Fade)

DIRECTOR
Sofia Coppola (The Beguiled)

SCREENPLAY (tie)
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos)
You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsay)

70TH ANNIVERSARY PRIZE (created by the jury)
Nicole Kidman for her body of work represented at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival

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Un Certain Regard Prizes

FILM

Lerd (Mohammad Rasoulof)

DIRECTOR

Taylor Sheridan, Wind River

JURY PRIZE

Michel Franco, April’s Daughter

JURY PRIZE FOR PERFORMANCE

Jasmine Trinca, Fortunata

SPECIAL AWARD FOR POETRY OF CINEMA

Mathieu Amalric, Barbara

SHORT FILM – PALME D’OR

Xiao Cheng Er Yue (A Gentle Night) (Qiu Yang)

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Director’s Fortnight Prizes

ART CINEMA AWARD

The Rider, (Chloe Zhao, U.S.)

EUROPA CINEMAS LABEL AWARD

A Ciambra, (Jonas Carpignano, Italy, Brazil, U.S.)

SOCIETY OF DRAMATIC AUTHORS AND COMPOSERS (SACD) PRIZE

Let the Sunshine In, (Claire Denis, France); Lover For a Day, (Philippe Garrel, France)

ILLY SHORT FILM PRIZE

Back To Genoa City, (Benoit Grimalt, France)

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International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) Prizes

COMPETITION
120 Beats Per Minute (Robin Campillo)

UN CERTAIN REGARD
Closeness (Kantemir Balagov)

CRITICS’ WEEK/DIRECTOR’S FORTNIGHT
The Nothing Factory (Pedro Pinho) (Director’s Fortnight)

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Camera d’Or

JEUNE FEMME (Léonor Sérraille)

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Short Film Prizes

First Prize:
PAUL EST LÀ (Paul Is Here)
Directed by Valentina MAUREL
INSAS, Belgium

Second Prize:
HEYVAN (AniMal)
Directed by Bahram & Bahman ARK
Iranian National School of Cinema, Iran

Third Prize:
DEUX ÉGARÉS SONT MORTS (Two Youths Died)
Directed by Tommaso USBERTI
La Fémis, France

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.