Les jeux sont faits, rien ne va plus! In a few hours we will know who won the Cannes Film Festival 2023, with a ceremony to be held on Saturday 27 May at 8.30 pm at the Grand théâtre Louis Lumière of the Palais des Festivals and will have Chiara Mastroianni as godmother (broadcast live on the event website). Predictions go crazy, and never a word was in keeping with the atmosphere: if guessing the Palmarès is always a very complicated undertaking, for this 76th edition it is even more so, view the unpredictability of the president, Ruben Östlund.
Cannes Film Festival 2023: anatomy of a jury
Inter alia the Swedish director, who won the Palme d’Or in 2017 with The Square and in 2022 with Triangle of Sadnessis in the exclusive club of those who won it twice (Francis Ford Coppola, Ken Loach, Bille August, Alf Sjöberg, Emir Kusturica, the Dardenne brothers, Michael Haneke, Shoei Imamura) and there are those who insinuate – it is a sin to think badly, you know, however – that if this year the top prize went to The Old OakLoach would break the record.
And in any case it will not be easy to prevail over jurors of personalities such as Moroccan director Maryam Touzani, French actor Denis Ménochet, Anglo-Zambian screenwriter and director Rungano Nyoni, American actress and director Brie Larson, American actor Paul Danothe Afghan writer and director Atiq Rahimi, the Argentine writer and director Damián Szifrón and the French director Julia Ducournau.
Julia Ducurnau vs. Nanni Moretti?
Ducurnau, in turn, might not look kindly on – even if she swore otherwise – a victory for Nanni Moretti. In 2021, when he defeated Three floors with Titansthe Roman director commented: «Getting old suddenly happens. Especially if your film participates in a festival. And he doesn’t win. And instead he wins another film, in which the protagonist becomes pregnant with a Cadillac. You get old suddenly. Safe”.
Women and the Palme d’Or
Complicating the prize pool is the “political correctness” factor: do you want not to award a woman, given that there are seven out of 21 directors in the competition, (thus bringing the proportion – in the last ten years attested to 16 percent – to 33 percent)?
And, to be on the Zeitgeist, do you want to not include a documentary in the Palmarès? At the Venice Film Festival he triumphed All the beauty and the pain by Laura Poitras, at the Berlin Film Festival Sur l’Adamant by Nicolas Philibert. In this case, there are two titles in pole position: Les Filles d’Olfa by Kaouther Ben Hania (so the “women’s share” would also be in place) e Young by the Chinese Wang Bing (yes, there is the “Asian share” to consider, as the recent Oscars have shown).
Aki Kaurismäki made everyone agree
What then this title, Youngis the only “young” thing about this 76th edition of Cannes: the average (average) age of directors is 65, of female directors 52. And five of them have already received at least one Palme d’Or: Loach, Moretti, Wim Wenders, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Only one debut has passed the selection of the competition: Banel and Adama of the 39-year-old French-Senegalese Ramata-Toulaye Sy.
And it is the work of an already established author the only film that has brought everyone together, critics, viewers, insiders: Kuolleet lehdet (The fallen leaves) Of Aki Kaurismäkiwhich celebrates the meeting of two loners and marginals.
Kuolleet lehdet (The Fallen Leaves) by Aki Kaurismäki.
Mia Wasikowska in the squad
And they are in the list of favourites Kuru otlar üstüne (Dried herbs, it’s definitely an autumn festival…) by another master, the Turkish Nuri Bilge CeylanAnd Monsters by the master Kore-eda. However, if the idea of the “strange famolo” prevails (moreover openly expressed by Östlund in the initial press conference, here he could also place himself on the podium Club Zero by the Austrian Jessica Hausner, with Mia Wasikowska in the role of a disturbing “conscious eating” teacher.
By changing the order of the factors, however, the result does not change: these same names could fill the “boxes” of the Special Jury Grand Prix, the Jury Prize, the Prix de la mise en scène.
Mia Wasikowska in “Club Zero”.
Sandra Hüller best actress and the opinion of the critics
On the other hand, according to the opinions of international critics, it would be to deserve the maximum prize The Zone of Interest by Jonathan Glazeran important film on the Holocaust (without slipping into the “pornography of pain”): it is based on the homonymous novel by Martin Amis, who just missed the day of the red carpet.
Sandra Hüller in “Anatomie d’une chute”.
Protagonist, as wife of Christian Friedel/Rudolf Höss, Sandra Hüller, also perfect in the second film in competition, Anatomies of a chute by Justine Triet: this time they also deny her the Palme d’Or for the female interpretation (as they did in 2016 for Meet Toni Erdmann) is a conspiracy.
We’re joking: unfortunately we must take into account the “balance sheet”, e Anatomies of a chute it’s just as perfect for screenplay recognition.
Koji Yakusho Best Actor?
He won everyone’s heart Koji Yakusho (a performance with very few words)cleaner in public toilets in Tokyo in perfect days Of Wim Wenders. In praise of a quiet life, made up of very simple and repetitive things, a thousand miles away from the frenzy and noise of these days in Cannes… The penultimate day has passed in competition: that the saturation effect after 10 days of the Festival has played in your favor? To the jury the arduous sentence.
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