Bong Joon-ho’s Par­a­site wins the Palme d’Or at Cannes 2019

After a man­ic 12 days on the Croisette, the 72^nd Cannes film fes­ti­val has drawn to a close. With it comes the annu­al dis­tri­b­u­tion of prizes, includ­ing top hon­our the Palme d’Or. The com­pe­ti­tion was pret­ty fierce this year with strong efforts from Céline Sci­amma (Por­trait of a Lady on Fire), Quentin Taran­ti­no (Once Upon a Time in Hol­ly­wood), Bong Joon-Ho (Par­a­site) and Pedro Almovó­dar (Pain and Glo­ry) all vying for top hon­ours decid­ed by this year’s jury led by Ale­jan­dro González Iñárritu.

How­ev­er, the big prize of the night went to Bong Joon-Ho for his sub­lime social satire. We were huge fans and couldn’t be hap­pi­er that he won – inci­den­tal­ly two years after kick­ing off the Cannes/​Netflix con­tro­ver­sy when his last film, Okja, screened at the fes­ti­val. The Grand Prix went to Mati Diop for Atlan­tique – not bad for a first feature.

In an unsur­pris­ing turn of events, Anto­nio Ban­deras picked up Best Actor for his por­tray­al of Sal­vador Mal­lo in Pain and Glo­ry, but there were some unex­pect­ed nods too. Best Actress went to Emi­ly Beecham for her role as a botanist in Jes­si­ca Hausner’s Lit­tle Joe, while Best Direc­tor was shared by the Dar­d­enne broth­ers for Young Ahmed, with Céline Sci­amma pick­ing up Best Screen­play for Por­trait of a Lady on Fire.

A joint Jury Prize was award­ed to Les Mis­érables and Bacu­rau while a spe­cial men­tion was giv­en to Elia Suleiman for It Must Be Heav­en. The Palme d’Or du court Métrage (Best Short Film) was pre­sent­ed to Vasilis Kekatos for The Dis­tance Between Us and the Sky, while the Cam­era d’Or, pre­sent­ed to a film­mak­er for their first fea­ture, went to Cesar Diaz for Our Mothers.

Over in the Un Cer­tain Regard side­bar, The Invis­i­ble Life of Euridice Gus­mao direct­ed by Karim Ain­ouz took home top hon­ours, with a Jury Prize for Oliv­er Laxe’s The Fire Will Come. The Quinzaine/Director’s Fort­night sec­tion is tech­ni­cal­ly non-com­pet­i­tive, but Robert Eggers’ The Light­house was hon­oured by the Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Film Crit­ics as the best film in the selec­tion. Jere­my Clapin’s dis­em­bod­ied hand ani­ma­tion I Lost My Body won the top prize at Critic’s Week.

Inde­pen­dent­ly, the Queer Palm for best film on LGBT issues went to Por­trait of a Lady on Fire. Arguably the most impor­tant award of the fes­ti­val, The Palm Dog, was award­ed to Brandy the Amer­i­can Pit­bull who steals scenes in Once Upon a Time in Hol­ly­wood. Taran­ti­no him­self accept­ed the sil­ver dog col­lar on her behalf on Fri­day at the festival.