The 74th Cannes Film Festival ended yesterday evening, July 17, 2021. This year’s film festival, held two months later than usual, was highly anticipated after last year’s cancellation. After watching the 24 feature films of the competition, the jury headed by Spike Lee presented the awards at the closing ceremony

:Cannes 2021 winners

At the closing ceremony, Italian director Marco Belluccio received an honorary Palme d’Or for his extraordinary filmmaking career. Another long and standing ovation of the audience was for Belluccio. When receiving his award, Belluccio said: Imagination and courage are the two basic ingredients for making a film. Jodie Foster was also awarded an honorary Palme d’Or for her amazing work during the opening ceremony. This year, out of 24 films, only four female directors were selected for the competition

The Palme d’or, presented by Sharon Stone, was awarded to Titane, directed by Julia Ducourneau. Ducourneau made history as the second woman to win the Palme d’Or in 74 years. Jane Campion won this award in 1993 jointly with Chen Kaige

The two main actors, Vincent Lyndon and Agathe Roussel, joined Ducourneau on stage as they accepted the award. This film received a lot of attention and praise when it was released, while many others severely criticized it and described it as a “monster”; As stated by Ducourneau

The grand prize, presented by director Oliver Stone, was awarded to two films this year: Hero by Asghar Farhadi and Part No. 6 by Joho Kovsmanen . The protagonist narrates the story of Rahim, who is imprisoned because he is unable to repay the debt. Amazon Studios has acquired the US rights to the Iranian film. Part #6 is an adaptation of the novel written by the Finnish author Rosa Lyksum. Koosmanen won the Un Certain Coun Award for the first time in 2016

Caleb Landry-Jones won the Prix de l’Interprétation for Best Actor for his role in Justin Kurzel’s Nutram. This movie is about the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Australia

Renate Rainseau won the best actress award for her role in Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person in the World”. The film follows Julie’s existential crisis in her thirties

The Jury Prize was also awarded to two films: Le Genou d’Ahed (Ahed’s Knee) directed by Nadav Lapid and Memoria directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul starring Tilda Swinton and Jean Balibar. The award was presented by Rosamund Pike in French

Leos Carax won Best Director for his musical Sparks Annette starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard. The award was received by Ron Miles and Russell Miles of Sparks, who co-wrote the screenplay. The film will be released in theaters on August 6th and digitally on August 20th via Amazon Prime

The Du Scénario Award (Best Screenplay), presented by director André Arnold, went to Ryûsuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe for Drive my Car. The film is a three-hour adaptation of a short story written by Haruki Murakami

The 2021 Un Certain Regard ceremony, which is part of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival awarding ceremony and focuses on discovering emerging filmmakers, took place the previous evening on July 16. The jury section was chaired by director and screenwriter Andre Arnold and consisted of five other jurors, director Monia Medador, actress Elsa Zilberstein, director Daniel Berman, and director and actor Michael Covino. The Un Certain Note Award went to Kara Kovalenko, Razzhimaya Kulaki (Open Fists), a Russian drama. The film was picked up by MUBI for distribution in North America, England, Ireland, India and Latin America

The Jury Prize was awarded to Sebastian Meise’s Gros Freiheit (Great Freedom), starring Franz Rogowski and Georg Friedrich. The Austrian film, about a man imprisoned for homosexuality and set in post-war Germany, has also been acquired by MUBI for release in North America, England, Ireland, India, Turkey and Latin America

Hafsia Herzi’s Bonne Mère (Good Mother) won the group award. Teodora Ana Mihai’s debut La Civil received the Courage Award. The originality award was given to the film Icelandic Lamb directed by Valdimar Johansson and starring Noomi Rapace. US rights to the film have been acquired by A24 and will be released by MUBI in the UK, Ireland, India, Brazil and other territories

The Golden Camera was also awarded to Morena for the best first feature film presented at Cannes, directed by Antonetta Alamat Kosijanovic