Tarantino pooch takes Palm Dog award

Tails wagging for Brandy - “a great actress.”

by Richard Mowe

Quentin Tarantino at the Palm Dog awards with a pitbull lookalike in place of Brandy
Quentin Tarantino at the Palm Dog awards with a pitbull lookalike in place of Brandy Photo: Palm Dog

Quentin Tarantino has received his first award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival - for the canine called Brandy who helps create the blood bath at the end of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, the hottest ticket at this year’s event.

The director turned up person for the Palm Dog awards earlier today (24 May). They were established by journalist and impresario Toby Rose for the best performance by a canine at the Festival.

Tarantino praised Brandy, who was unable to make it to the Riviera but did sterling service on the film when she played the pit bull pet of Brad Pitt’s character Cliff Booth. “I want to thank the jury from the bottom of my black heart,” quipped Tarantino. “And at least I won’t go home empty handed.” He will take the dog collar prize back to LA and hand it over to Brandy.

He added: “"When I was editing the movie I realised, she's a great actress. I actually started seeing things in her face when I was cutting it together that I didn't see on the day, so whatever little difficulties we had on set just really melted away when I saw what a great performance she gave."

Other dogs received honours in what was regarded as lightweight year for canine performances. They included Bello from the sci-fi horror film Little Joe, and a special mention went to the canine cast of Aasha And The Street Dogs (shown in the Cannes market), the first live-action dog drama shot in India.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, which was moderately to well received by the critics, also stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie and is in contention for the big prizes which will be revealed at the closing ceremony tomorrow (25 May).

Share this with others on...

Movies out this week include:

High & Low - John Galliano Monster
News

A postcard from the 26th Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival A look at winners and additional gems from a turbulent edition

Complete love Apollo Bakopoulos on self-realisation, dance, Athens, New York and Aligned

A whale of a time Cutter Hodierne on cryptocurrency, character creation and Cold Wallet

The monster within Kourtney Roy and Chloe Pirrie discuss Kryptic

Wanting to make a difference Jessica Hausner in conversation on Club Zero, Elsa Zylberstein and Mathieu Demy as parents, and Pied Piper of Hamelin

More news and features

We're bringing you all the latest from BFI Flare.



We're looking forward to the Glasgow Short Film Festival, the Overlook Film Festival and Fantaspoa.



We've recently covered SXSW, the Glasgow Film Festival, the Berlinale, Sundance, Palm Springs, the French Film Festival, DOC NYC, the UK Jewish Film Festival and the Leeds International Film Festival.



Read our full for more.


Visit our festivals section.

Interact

More competitions coming soon.