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Cannes Winners Are Again Good For Neon But Create Confusing Picture For Oscar Race – Which Films Could Place In Both?
An analysis of how the Cannes Film Festival Winners and Premieres Might affect the upcoming Oscar Race after recent years of matching success
The History Of Sound starring Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor was an enormously moving gay love story made with great craftsmanship by Oliver Hermanus, and though it won no jury mention I think could register with Academy voters given half a chance. A24’s divisive Eddington, set during the Covid pandemic in a small New Mexico town, won no love from the jury and clearly split Cannes despite a great lead performance from Joaquin Phoenix as a sheriff who refuses to wear a mask and sparks a MAGA-style backlash. Still there is the aforementioned over-praised Jury Prize winner (in a tie) The Sound Of Falling, and in my opinion an even better but less hyped out of competition entry Amrum scoring for Germany; Two Prosectors for Ukraine; the brilliant Sirat(the other tie for Jury Prize) for Spain; Renoir for Japan; Eagles Of The Republic for Egypt; Dossier 137 one of many possibilities for France includingout of competition The Richest Woman In The World with Isabelle Huppert; the Sean Baker co-written and produced Left Handed Girl for Taiwan; and possibly two first-time countries with Nigeria’s first-ever Cannes debut, the terrific My Father’s Shadow; and I was an early supporter of Iraq’s The President’s Cake which debuted early in Directors Fortnight and now comes out of Cannes not only as Fortnight’s Audience People’s Choice winner, but also as winner of the prestigious Camera d’Or (first time feature filmmaker across all sections of the festival) for Hasan Hadi for this enormously effective film that as I pointed out in my review SHOULD have been in the main competition (had it been young lead actress Baneen Ahmad Nayyef would have been a history making and much more deserving Best Actress choice).
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