In my awards-wrap piece for last year’s Cannes, I complimented jury president Ruben Östlund and his deliberators on a deliberation well done. They chose to award mostly the films Vadim Rizov and I had already covered in prior dispatches, granting me the freedom to go longer on my thoughts about The State of the Festival, as well as highlights from the Quinzaine des cinéastes sidebar (a.k.a. The Directors’ Fortnight), which had just finished unveiling new artistic director Julien Rejl’s inaugural edition. No such luck this year—not because Greta Gerwig gave ungreat prizes (au contraire, her jury’s picks were about as […]
by Blake Williams on May 30, 2024American independent filmmaker Sean Baker was, for us at Filmmaker, the thrilling winner of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or for his forthcoming NEON release, Anora, a comedy about a sex worker, played by Mickey Madison, and her relationship with a Russian oligarch’s son. “This literally has been my singular goal as a filmmaker for the past 30 years,” Baker said on accepting the award from the Greta Gerwig-led jury, “so I’m not really sure what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. But I do know that I will continue to fight for cinema because right […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 26, 2024