After receiving glowing reviews from critics at Cannes, Spike Lee‘s BlacKkKlansman walked away with one of the film festival’s top awards, the Grand Prix.
The provocative film, set in the early 1970s, stars John David Washington as Ron Stallworth, a black detective who launches an undercover investigation of the Ku Klux Klan with colleague Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver). Topher Grace also features as David Duke, the KKK’s Grand Wizard.
As for the coveted Palme d’Or, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda received the honor for his film Shoplifters (Manbiki Kazoku), about a poor family taking in a little girl found in the freezing cold. Winners of this honor from the past couple years include Ruben Östlund’s The Square and Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake.
Also on Saturday, Netflix announced it had acquired best screenplay winner Happy as Lazzaro and Caméra d’Or winner Girl for distribution in North America and Latin America. This comes after Netflix had pulled its films from Cannes after the festival announced a rule change that prohibited titles without theatrical releases from participating in competition.
Girl, directed by Lukas Dhont, also received the Queer Palm award, a recognition for LGBTQ-themed works.
Cate Blanchett served as the president of this year’s Cannes jury, which included A Wrinkle in Time director Ava DuVernay, Kristen Stewart, Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve, Spectre‘s Léa Seydoux, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon‘s Chang Chen, French filmmaker Robert Guédiguian, Burundian songwriter-composer Khadja Nin, and Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev.
See the list of winners below.
Palme d’Or
Shoplifters, director Hirokazu Kore-eda
Grand Prix
Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman
Jury Prize
Nadine Labaki, Capernaum
Special Palme d’Or
Jean-Luc Godard, Image Book
Best Actor
Marcello Fonte, Dogman
Best Director
Pawel Pawlikowski, Cold War
Best Screenplay
Alice Rohrwacher, Happy As Lazzaro
Nader Saeivar, 3 Faces
Best Actress
Samal Yeslyamova, My Little One
Caméra d’Or
Girl, director Lukas Dhont
Short Film Palme d’Or
“All These Creatures,” director Charles Williams
Short Film Palme d’Or Special Mention
“On the Border,” director Wei Shujun
Ecumenical Jury Prize
Capernaum, Nadine Labaki
Ecumenical Jury Special Mention
BlacKkKlansman, Spike Lee
Queer Palm
Girl, Lukas Dhont
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