What’s historically been great about the Cannes jury press conference at the end of the festival is that it provides a window into what this conclave was thinking and the choices made for award selections.
However, few reporters got the chance to ask hard hitting questions, and the jury was steered by the conference moderator to describe trivial procedures and superlatives about their assembly, i.e. how Demi Moore likes her first name pronounced (“De-meee”) and making fast decisions on the award selections this morning (“It wasn’t to get our phones back,” said Jury President Park Chan-wook).
However, a smart query broke through at the end, questioning the Director Park-led jury on why they handed out a couple of category ties, specifically in Best Director with Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi for the new Netflix owned La Bola Negra and Paweł Pawlikowski for Mubi’s Fatherland; as well as Best Actor which was bestowed to the leads of Lukas Dhont’s Coward, Emmanuel Macchia, Valentin Campagneshare.
In addition, there was a tie in Best Actress with Virginie Efira and Tao Okamo for All Of A Sudden.
Was it hard to make decisions?
Answered Director Park, “If you see the films that was awarded the actors award, I’m certain you’d have to agree with our choices.”
The Decision to Leave Cannes winning director added, “As far as the director award, to emphasize this again, both filmmakers did an amazing job with their work and we couldn’t decide whether one was better than the other.”
“We were very moved at a time where loneliness, the relationship between human beings are becoming somehow further and further away. The tenderness we felt in the relationships in these films, and so it was very much — we fell in love, not in just with the actors, but the relationships of love and tenderness between them, we fell in love with awarding both of them,” said 2x Oscar winner and Jury Member Chloe Zhao.
“I didn’t want to give the Palme D’Or to any of the films because it’s an award that I’ve never gotten.” Director Park, ever the joker, exclaimed earlier in the conference, “But I had no other choice.”
