CANNES Festival 2019

[Chris Knipp]

Bong Joon-ho, director of Parasite/기생충, takes the Palme d'Or at Cannes 2019 [Photo Stéphane Mahé/Reuters]

Awards comments.

It's exciting that a Korean film at last won the Palme d'Or. Last year my favorite non-English language film was Lee Chang-dong's Burning. It's also great that newcomers outside the mainstream got top recognition, with the Grand Prix to Atlantics, debut feature directed by Mati Diop, an African woman, and the Jury Prize to Les Miseerables, directed by a black son of the banlieue, Ladj Ly (who said in the press conference he chooses still to live there). Bacurau's Kleber Mendonça Filho is no newcomer, but Brazil is another country whose superb filmmaking deserves more recognition, and this is a wild, crazy genre-piece of a film.

An interesting tweet;

Robbie Collin
(@robbiereviews)
Like this selection very much indeed. Portrait/Fire seems undervalued, but at least it got something. Maybe give Sciamma director and Tarantino screenplay and it would have been perfect. #Cannes2019

Yes, good idea - nothing can make up for Tarantino's only winning the Palm Dog! But he seemed gracious and pleased to have won that, or the dog' a pitt bull called Brandy, to have. After all the talk about how much they loved Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and the critical popularity of Pain and Glory, these were undervalued, especially considering that Almodóvar has been making movies for a long time and never won a top Cannes prize.

Another interesting tweet:

Donald Clarke
(@DonaldClarke63)
Two Asian films about families of eccentric con artists win the Palme in consecutive years. WHAT CAN IT MEAN? #CANNES2019