The 2023 Cannes International Film Festival is drawing to a close with the awards ceremony for the 76th festival.
The closing ceremony started on Saturday evening at the Grand Théâtre Lumière of the Palais des Festivals in Cannes. This year’s jury, headed by Swedish director Ruben Östlund, two-time Cannes winner, who won last year’s Palme d’Or for Best Picture for Triangle of sadness — chooses the winners from the 21 films in competition. This year’s jury also consists of Brie Larson, Paul Dano, Maryam Touzani, Denis Ménochet, Rungano Nyoni, Atiq Rahimi, Damián Szifron and Julia Ducournau.
The closing ceremony, which marks the end of the Cannes Film Festival in 2023, will be broadcast live on the French network France 2 and streamed worldwide on the Brut international channel. The awards will be followed by Disney/Pixar’s world premiere Elementary by director Peter Sohn.
This year, for a change, the festival will present a series of famous actors and filmmakers with the most important awards of 2023. Orlando Bloom presents the jury prize. Parasite star Song Kang-ho, last year’s winner for Best Actor Brokerwill award the best actress award, with the best actress of Cannes 2022, Holy spider star Zar Amir Ebrahimi, who presents the Best Actor award. John C. Reilly, chairman of this year’s Un Certain Regard jury, presents the trophy for the best screenplay. Pete Docter, creative director of Pixar Studios, will present the award for best director. Quentin Tarantino, winner of the 1994 Palme d’Or, and legendary cult filmmaker Roger Corman will jointly present the second Grand Prix award, while veteran star Jane Fonda closes the evening with the presentation of the Palme d’Or.
Of the 21 films in competition for the Palme this year, several are from previous winners, including two-timer Palmer Ken Loach, a 2006 winner for The wind that shakes the barleyand in 2016 before I, Daniel Blakeback on the Croisette with The old oak. Nanni Moretti, whose A son’s room took the Palme in 2001, is in the running with A better tomorrow. The 2018 winner, Kore-Eda Hirokazu (Shoplifters), is back Sample; Turkish director and 2015 Cannes winner Nuri Bilge Ceylan (for Hibernation), returning with About dry grasses; and 1984 Cannes winner Wim Wenders (Paris Texel) back in competition with Perfect days. This year’s lineup also includes Kidnappedthe latest from Italian cinema maestro Marco Bellocchio, who received an honorary Palme d’Or in 2021 for his life’s work.
But there is no clear favorite for this year’s awards. Jonathan Glazer’s holocaust drama The interest zoneAki Kaurismäki’s funny Finnish dramedy Fallen leavesAlice Rohrwacher’s archaeological thriller La ChimeraKaouther Ben Hania’s docudrama Four DaughtersCatherine Corsini’s French family drama HomecomingTodd Haynes’ may decembera melodrama about fame and scandal, Tran Anh Hùng’s foodie romance The Pot-au-FeuWang Bing’s documentary about Chinese garment workers, Youth (Spring)Justine Triet’s French courtroom thriller Anatomy of a falland the historical drama of Karim Aïnouz Firefireall scored highly with critics this year.
Wellness satire by Jessica Hausner Club ZeroJean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s paramedical thriller Black fliesSenegalese mythical romance Banel and Adama by first time director Ramata-Toulaye Sy, Catherine Breillat’s Last summeran erotic thriller about an intergenerational romance, and Wes Anderson’s star-studded Asteroid City were more divided, but all had their supporters.
