Indie filmmaker wins top prize for Brooklyn odyssey ‘Anora’
Sean Baker first American to win Palme d’Or in 12 years
Sean Baker’s “Anora,” a comic but devastating Brooklyn odyssey about a sex worker who marries the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch, has won the Cannes Film Festival’s top award, the Palme d’Or.
The win Saturday for “Anora” marked a coronation for Baker, the acclaimed indie filmmaker of “The Florida Project.” It’s also, remarkably, the fifth straight Palme d’Or won by specialty distributor Neon, following “Parasite,” “Titane,” “Triangle of Sadness” and last year’s winner, “Anatomy of a Fall.” Baker accepted the prize with his movie’s star, Mikey Madison, watching in the audience at the Cannes closing ceremony.
“This, literally, has been my singular goal as a filmmaker for the past 30 years, so I’m not really sure what I’m going to do with the rest of my life,” said Baker, laughing.
But Baker, the first American filmmaker to win the Palme since Terrence Mallick in 2012 with “The Tree of Life,” quickly answered that his ambition would remain to “fight to keep cinema alive.” The 53-yearold director said the world needed reminding that “watching a film at home while scrolling through your phone, answering emails and half paying attention is just not the way, although some tech companies would like us to think so.”
The awards were chosen by the nine-member jury led by Greta Gerwig, who told reporters she was “forever changed as a filmmaker because of this experience.” Gerwig praised “Anora” as having the feeling of classical cinema, saying it felt like an Ernst Lubitsch or Howard Hawks film that lead in unexpected directions.
While “Anora” was arguably the most acclaimed film of the festival, its win was a slight surprise. Many expected either the gentle Indian drama “All We Imagine As Light” or the Iranian film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” to win.
There were two Canadian films in the competition, David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds” and Ali Abassi’s “The Apprentice,” a Canada/ Ireland/Denmark co-production shot in Ontario.
“All We Imagine As Light,” about sisterhood in modern Mumbai, won the Grand Prix, Cannes’ second-highest honour. Payal Kapadia’s second feature was the first Indian in competition in Cannes in 30 years.
The jury awarded a special prize to Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” a drama made secretly in Iran. Days ahead of the film’s premiere, Rasoulof, facing an eight-year prison sentence, fled Iran on foot. His film, which includes real footage from the 202223 demonstrations in Iran, channels Iranian oppression into a family drama.
Coralie Fargeat’s body horror film “The Substance,” starring Demi Moore as a Hollywood actress who goes to gory extremes to remain youthful, won for best screenplay.
Some thought Moore might take best actress. But that honour instead went to an ensemble 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 who transitions to a woman. Gascón, who accepted the award, is the first trans actor to win a major prize at Cannes.
Best actor went to Jesse Plemons for Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Kinds of Kindness.” In the film, three stories are told with largely the same company of actors. Portuguese director Miguel Gomes won best director for his “Grand Tour,” an Asian odyssey in which a man flees his fiancée from Rangoon in 1917.
The Camera d’Or, the prize for best first feature across all of Cannes official selections, went to Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel for “Armand,” starring “The Worst Person in the World” star Renate Reinsve.