AwardsWatch - Cannes: Gaspar Noé’s ‘Climax’ Wins Top Director’s Fortnight Prize

Cannes: Gaspar Noé’s ‘Climax’ Wins Top Director’s Fortnight Prize

No one was more surprised than director Gaspar Noé himself when his new film, Climax, was met was near universal raves when it debuted in the Director’s Fortnight section of the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. So ready to be hated and vilified, the poster for the film even says “You Despised I Stand Alone. You Hated Irreversible. You Loathed Enter the Voice. You Cursed Love. Now Try CLIMAX.”

Well, we did and now it’s won the top prize from the festival section, the Art Cinema Award. The film is about a dance troop who inadvertently all drink some LSD-spiked sangria (called by some ‘Step Up on acid’) and devolve into an orgy of debauchery. Climax was picked up by A24 for US distribution.

Here is the full list of winners from the 2018 Cannes Director’s Fortnight.

ART CINEMA AWARD

“Climax,” (Gaspar Noé, France, Belgium)

EUROPA CINEMAS LABEL

“Lucia’s Grace (Gianni Zanasi, Italy)

SACD PRIZE

“The Trouble With You,” (Pierre Salvadori, France)

ILLY SHORT FILM AWARD

“Skip Day,” (Patrick Bresnan, Ivete Lucas)

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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), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) 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.