2024 Cannes Film Festival

• 1. Introduction

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  The 77th Cannes Film Festival ran from the 14th to the 25th of May 2024. It opened with Quentin Dupieux's comedy-film The Second Act. Twenty-two films competed for the Palme d'Or. Before the opening ceremony had even begun, festival workers had raised a public complaint about precarious conditions in the industry. The eleven days of screenings would produce major awards, protests, and a political crisis unfolding in real time.

• 2. The Palme d'Or

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  American filmmaker and actress Greta Gerwig served as president of the main competition jury. Her nine-member panel included Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda, Lebanese filmmaker and actress Nadine Labaki, and American actress Lily Gladstone. When the prizes were announced, Sean Baker's Anora claimed the Palme d'Or, the festival's top prize. Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine as Light, a co-production involving France, India, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Italy, received the Grand Prix.

  Jacques Audiard's Emilia Pérez had an exceptional awards night. It took the Jury Prize, and the Best Actress award was shared among all four of the film's leads. Adriana Paz, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, and Zoe Saldaña each received the prize. Jesse Plemons won Best Actor for Yorgos Lanthimos's Kinds of Kindness. Coralie Fargeat's The Substance won Best Screenplay. Miguel Gomes took Best Director for Grand Tour. The Caméra d'Or for best debut feature, open to all sections of the festival, went to Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel's Armand.

• 3. A Film Under Fire

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  Mohammad Rasoulof received a sentence of eight years in prison after The Seed of the Sacred Fig was selected for the main competition. The same ruling included flogging, a fine, and his property was to be confiscated. The charge was propaganda against the regime.

  Cast and crew members were interrogated and pressured to convince Rasoulof to withdraw the film from Cannes. Shortly after, Rasoulof and some crew members managed to leave Iran and reach Europe. The film's world premiere took place on the 24th of May 2024, the day before the festival's closing ceremonies.

  On the red carpet, Rasoulof held up photographs of two cast members, Soheila Golestani and Missagh Zareh. Both had been unable to leave Iran, their passports confiscated by authorities. The film received a standing ovation lasting twelve minutes. Cast and crew used the moment to protest in solidarity with Iranian women's fight for rights.

  The festival awarded The Seed of the Sacred Fig the Prix Spécial. It also won the FIPRESCI Prize for the main competition and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. The Prix François Chalais and the AFCAE Art House Cinema Award followed. The film was a co-production of Iran, Germany, and France.

• 4. Honoring Cinema's Past

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  The festival's official poster reproduced a still image from Akira Kurosawa's 1991 film Rhapsody in August. The film had appeared at the 44th edition of the festival. Graphic studio Hartland Villa produced the poster design. The Cannes Classics section opened with the first part of a new restoration of Abel Gance's Napoleon from 1927. Georges Mourier edited the restoration in association with the Cinémathèque Française, with support from the CNC. That portion ran three hours and forty minutes. A restored print of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai from 1954 also appeared in the Classics lineup.

  Three Honorary Palme d'Or awards were distributed across the opening and closing ceremonies. Meryl Streep received the first at the opening ceremony, hosted by French actress Camille Cottin. Studio Ghibli received the second, and George Lucas was honored at the closing. Four Ghibli short films were screened at the Grand Théâtre Lumière as part of the tribute. Three of those four had never been shown outside Japan before. Porco Rosso from 1992 and Tales from Earthsea from 2006 were screened at the open-air Cinéma de la Plage in honor of the studio.

• 5. New Ground

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  The 2024 edition introduced an Immersive Competition for the first time. Eight immersive works competed in the new section, alongside six additional productions shown out of competition. Tania de Montaigne, Stéphane Foenkinos, and Pierre-Alain Giraud won the inaugural prize with Colored.

  The Directors' Fortnight, established in 1969, presented its first ever official award that year, called the Audience Award. Matthew Rankin's Universal Language won the inaugural honor. Andrea Arnold received the Golden Coach, the section's most prestigious recognition.

  From 4,420 short film submissions, eleven were chosen to compete for the Short Film Palme d'Or. Nebojša Slijepčević's The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent won the prize. Daniel Soares's Bad for a Moment from Portugal received a Special Mention. The Cinéfondation competition drew 2,263 student films from around the world. Chidananda S Naik of FTII Pune in India won the First Prize of €15,000 for Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know.