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Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite Wins Cannes Palme d’Or; Mati Diop’s Atlantics Picks Up Grand Prix
Park So-Dam and Choi Woo-Shik in Parasite South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s dark social satire/thriller Parasite won the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or. It’s the first time a Korean director has won the award, and jury president Alejandro González Iñárritu said the jury was unanimous. First-time French-Senegalese feature filmmaker Mati Diop — the actress known for roles in Claire Denis’s 35 Shots of Rum and American indies like L for Leisure and Fort Buchanan had previously directed shorts and a medium-length documentary — won the festival’s second prize, the Grand Prix, for her Atlantics. It’s a magic-realistic-tinged tale of women left behind in Senegal after their boyfriends and husbands migrate to Europe. Best Actor went to Antonio Banderas for his role as an aging film director in Pedro Almodovar’s self-referential Pain and Glory. The Dardennes Brothers won Best Director for The Young Ahmed, about a teenage boy en route to Islamic extremism.
The complete list of winners is below, with links to Blake Williams’s coverage.
Palme d’Or: Parasite, Bong Joon-ho
Grand Prix: Atlantics, Mati Diop
Jury Prize (tie): Les Misérables (Ladj Ly) and Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles)
Best Actress: Emily Beecham, Little Joe
Best Actor: Antonio Banderas, Pain & Glory
Best Director: Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, The Young Ahmed
Best Screenplay: Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma
Special Mention of the Jury: It Must Be Heaven, Elia Suleiman
Camera d’Or: Our Mothers, César Díaz
Short Film Palme d’Or: The Distance Between Us And The Sky, Vasilis Kekatos
Special Mention of the Jury: Monstruo Dios, Agustina San
Queer Palm (Feature): Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma
Queer Palm (Short): The Distance Between Us And The Sky, Vasilis Kekatos
The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) gave the following awards:
FIPRESCI PRIZES, CANNES 2019
COMPETITION
It Must be Heaven (Elia Suleiman, France, Germany, Netherlands)
UN CERTAIN REGARD
Beanpole (Kantemir Balagov, Russia)
DIRECTORS’ FORTNIGHT/CRITICS’ WEEK
The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers, U.S., Brazil)
