We’re two for two. After nailing both Sundance’s top winner and the Golden Bear with our YouBETcha! predictions, we now turn to the Palme d’Or horse race kicking off today. Out of the 22 Competition titles, two former winners—Cristian Mungiu and Hirokazu Kore-eda—return in pursuit of a rare double Palme, a feat only achieved by greats such as Francis Ford Coppola, Bille August, Emir Kusturica, Shohei Imamura, the Dardenne brothers, Michael Haneke, Ken Loach and Ruben Östlund (he’ll attempt his 3-peat next year). Meanwhile, exactly half the lineup are first-timers stepping into competition for the very first time, many of whom will now forever associate their Croisette debut with Saint-Saëns’ Aquarium from Le Carnaval des animaux, the festival’s lingering, almost hypnotic sonic signature. Presiding over the 79th Cannes Film Festival Jury is Park Chan-wook, who famously came close to the taste of the Palme d’Or fame in 2003 with Oldboy. He is joined by a jury mixing cinema and performance: Demi Moore, Ruth Negga, Isaach De Bankolé and Stellan Skarsgård, screenwriter Paul Laverty, and filmmaker peers Laura Wandel, Chloé Zhao and Diego Céspedes. Our sense is that this year’s top honor may once again tilt toward a filmmaker who has, like Chan-wook held the Grand Prix. By May 23rd, we’re watching closely to see whether Coward—the 20th film out of 22—can sway and slay the nine-member jury in the festival’s final hours.
On the two occasions that Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont has been to Cannes he has left with his suitcases slightly heavier. Landing the Caméra d’Or award for Girl in 2018, and the Grand Prix award in 2022 for Close, Dhont’s third feature film is set during World War I and tells the tale of a young Belgian soldier who discovers love and art while questioning traditional notions of heroism and cowardice. The Hollywood Reporter had an extensive look into the filmmaker’s process. If Coward hits all the right notes about subversion of patriarchal masculinity, queer connection and the right to refuse violence – we could have a loud film spoken with simple gestures we’ve come to know in his cinema.
Mungiu has been the leading figure of the Romanian New Wave with a cinema that focused on moral ambiguity, institutional breakdown, and the quiet violence of everyday systems. When he won the Palme d’Or in 2007 with 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days he would follow with more Ceaușescu-era Romania trappings in post and present day portraits in Beyond the Hills, Graduation, and R.M.N. Fjord might appear to be from a different fabric but it continues in his interest in fractured communities, this time within a colder, more isolated emotional and geographical landscape (in a different language) with recognizable talents in Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve exploring some darker matter.
He has only won the Jury Prize for his sophomore feature The Banishment (2007) and Best Screenplay for 2014’s Leviathan, but Andrey Zvyagintsev is moral decay par excellence. An expert in existential detachment, institutional corruption and the breakdown of family, Minotaur could borrow from classical tragedy roots for the tale of a Russian company director who is on the verge of laying off his employees, when he discovers his wife is having an affair. This intimate drama, filmed in exile, is rooted in the context of contemporary Russia and emerges as a political fable. Here our odds on favorites with awards such as the Palme d’Or, Grand Prix, and Jury Prize in play.
5/1 Coward (Lukas Dhont)
5/1 Fjord (Cristian Mungiu)
5/1 Minotaur (Andrey Zvyagintsev)
6/1 Fatherland (Pawel Pawlikowski)
7/1 All of a Sudden (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
8/1 Gentle Monster (Marie Kreutzer)
9/1 Sheep in the Box (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
10/1 The Man I Love (Ira Sachs)
13/1 Hope (Na Hong-jin)
14/1 The Black Ball (Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo)
15/1 The Beloved (Rodrigo Sorogoyen)
16/1 Garance aka Another Day (Jeanne Herry)
18/1 A Man of His Time (Emmanuel Marre)
20/1 Moulin (László Nemes)
22/1 Bitter Christmas (Pedro Almodóvar)
25/1 The Dreamed Adventure (Valeska Grisebach)
30/1 Parallel Tales (Asghar Farhadi)
30/1 The Unknown (Arthur Harari)
40/1 A Woman’s Life (Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet)
50/1 Nagi Notes (Koji Fukada)
50/1 Paper Tiger (James Gray)
60/1 The Birthday Party (Léa Mysius)