Cannes Film Festival 2016 – awards predictions | Little White Lies

Festivals

Cannes Film Fes­ti­val 2016 – awards predictions

21 May 2016

Words by David Jenkins

Two people embracing on a striped sofa in a room with a lamp.
Two people embracing on a striped sofa in a room with a lamp.
Team LWLies glance back over a strong com­pe­ti­tion and pick out their hot con­tenders for glory.

Well, that’s a wrap for what was a humding­ing 2016 Cannes com­pe­ti­tion slate, but there’s still the small but impor­tant mat­ter of the the cli­mac­tic gong show. One com­ment echoed over and over on the Croisette this year: that pro­gram­mers offered up a vin­tage crop of films, even if the home straight did include a few out-and-out duf­fers. Per­haps what was more inter­est­ing about this year’s fes­ti­val is that there was a sense of volatil­i­ty, with old reli­ables like the Dar­d­enne broth­ers maybe los­ing the stride a lit­tle with the The Unknown Girl, and more eso­teric tal­ents such as Jim Jar­musch deliv­er­ing a left-field cork­er in the form of the dev­il­ish­ly charm­ing Pater­son. And then there was big sur­pris­es in the form of everyone’s new favourite film, Toni Erd­mann by Maren Ade, and an epi­cal­ly bizarre ghost sto­ry from Olivi­er Assayas in the form of Per­son­al Shopper.

So ahead of the award cer­e­mo­ny tomor­row, in which George Miller and his jury will have to dish out the sil­ver­wear how they see fit, team LWLies offer their own list of prize contenders.

Get more Lit­tle White Lies

Portrait of a person with short dark hair wearing a light blue jacket, looking directly at the camera with a serious expression.

Sophie Monks Kaufman

Palme d’Or: Toni Erd­mann by Maren Ade

Grand Prix: Pater­son by Jim Jarmusch

Actor: Damien Bon­nard in Stay­ing Vertical

Actress: Adèle Haenel in The Unknown Girl

Direc­tor: Jeff Nichols for Lov­ing

Screen­play: Pedro Almod­ó­var for Julieta

Jury: The Sales­man by Asghar Farhardi

David Jenk­ins

Palme d’Or: Toni Erd­mann by Maren Ade

Grand Prix: Pater­son by Jim Jarmusch

Actor: Adri­an Titieni in Grad­u­a­tion

Actress: Ruth Neg­ga in Loving

Direc­tor: Pedro Almod­ó­var for Julieta

Screen­play: Cristi Puiu for Sier­aneva­da

Jury: Per­son­al Shop­per by Olivi­er Assayas

Vis­it all our 2016 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val coverage.

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