Troll "love story" scoops top prize

Cannes Un Certain Regard prizes revealed

by Richard Mowe

Going swimmingly in Cannes - Border takes top Un Certain Regard prize
Going swimmingly in Cannes - Border takes top Un Certain Regard prize Photo: Festival de Cannes

The top prize in the sidebar Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival has been awarded to Ali Abbasi’s Border.

Gaspard Noé’s Climax garlanded in Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes
Gaspard Noé’s Climax garlanded in Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes Photo: Quinzaine des Réalisateurs

The Swedish-Iranian director’s film about a customs officer and her strange obsession with a suspect she is investigating has been dubbed “a troll love story.”

The jury head by Benicio Del Toro named Sergei Loznitsa as best director for Donbass and the jury prize was awarded to Joao Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora’s The Dead And The Others.

Del Toro said that of the 18 films he and his jury had viewed all were “big winners in their own way but we had to pick the five films that moved us as a group.”

The best screenwriting accolade was awarded to Sofia by Meryem Benm’Barek-Aloïsi while Victor Polster who plays the transgender ballet student in Girl was garlanded with the best acting prize.

Lukas Dhont, the director, received the award on his behalf, saying that his lead actor had had to leave Cannes to go back to school as he was only 16.

In other Cannes awards ahead of the Palme d’Or announcement tomorrow evening as well as the FIPRESCI honours (international critics) are director Gaspard Noé taking the top Art Cinema Award in the Directors’ Fortnight while Pierre Salvadori won the SACD prize for The Trouble With You, a screwball comedy co-written by Salvador and Benoit Graffin and Benjamin Charbit.

Troppa Grazia by Gianni Zanesi received the Label Europa Cinema.

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