Sean Baker’s “Anora” wins Palme d’Or, the Cannes Film Festival’s top honor

Sean Baker’s “Anora,” a comical but devastating Brooklyn odyssey about a sex worker who marries the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch, won the Cannes Film Festival’main prize, the Palme d’Or.

Baker accepted the award with his movie star, Mikey Madison, watching in the audience at the Cannes closing ceremony on Saturday. The “Anora” win marks a new high for Baker, director of “The Florida Project.” It is also, notably, the fifth consecutive Palme d’Or won by independent distributor Neon, following “Parasite”, “Titane”, “Triangle of Sadness” and last year’s winner, “Anatomy of a Fall”.

“This has literally been my singular goal as a filmmaker for the last 30 years, so I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the rest of my life,” Baker said, laughing.

But Baker, the first American filmmaker to win the Palm since Terrence Mallick in 2012 with “The Tree of Life”, quickly responded that his ambition would continue to be “fighting to keep cinema alive”. The 53-year-old director said the world needs to be reminded that “watching a movie at home while scrolling through your phone, answering emails and paying little attention is simply not the way to go, although some tech companies would like us to think so.” .

“So I say the future of cinema is where it started: in a movie theater,” Baker said.

Although “Anora” was arguably the festival’s most acclaimed film, its victory came as a bit of a surprise. Many expected the gentle Indian drama “All We Imagine As Light” or the Iranian film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” to win. Both films also took home awards.

However, it wasn’t the only surprise at the closing ceremony. Before George Lucas received the honorary Palme d’Or, his old friend and sometimes collaborator Francis Ford Coppola appeared to present it to him, bringing together two of the most important figures of the last half-century of American cinema.

“All We Imagine As Light,” about brotherhood in modern-day Mumbai, won the Grand Prix, Cannes’ second-highest honor. Payal Kapadia’s second feature was the first Indian film in competition at Cannes in 30 years.

The jury awarded a special prize to “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”, by Mohammad Rasoulof, a drama made secretly in Iran. Days before the film’s premiere, Rasoulof, who faces an eight-year prison sentence, fled Iran on foot . His film, which includes real footage from the 2022-2023 demonstrations in Iran, turns Iranian oppression into a family drama. The Cannes crowd greeted an emotional Rasoulof with a long standing ovation.

Coralie Fargeat’s body horror film “The Substance,” starring Demi Moore as a Hollywood actress who goes to bloody extremes to stay young, won best screenplay.

“I truly believe that films can change the world, so I hope this film is a small stepping stone to build new foundations,” said Fargeat. “I really think we need a revolution and I don’t think it’s really started yet.”

Some thought Moore might win best actress, but the award went to a group of actors: Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz for Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Perez,” a Spanish-language musical about a Mexican drug lord in transition. for a woman. Gascón, who received the award, is the first trans actor to win a major award at Cannes.

“Emilia Perez” also won the jury prize at Cannes, awarding two rare prizes at a festival where awards are typically given out.

Best actor went to Jesse Plemons for “Kinds of Kindness”, by Yorgos Lanthimos. In the film, three stories are told with practically the same company of actors. Plemons, featured in several chapters, did not attend the closing ceremony.

Portuguese director Miguel Gomes won the best director award for his “Grand Tour”, an Asian odyssey in which a man runs away from his fiancée in Yangon in 1917.

“Sometimes I’m lucky,” shrugged Gomes.

The Camera d’Or, the award for best debut film among all official Cannes selections, went to Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel for “Armand”, starring “The Worst Person in the World” star Renate Reinsve. Tøndel is the grandson of Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman and Norwegian actress Liv Ullman.

During the brief awards ceremony, Lucas would receive an honorary Palme d’Or. During the festival, Cannes paid the same tribute to Meryl Streep and the Japanese anime factory Studio Ghibli.