Cannes jury president Spike Lee mistakenly reveals Palme d’Or winner

Cannes jury president Spike Lee accidentally lifted the lid at the Cannes Film Festival, revealing the Palme d’Or winner ‘Titane’ before the other honours. ‘Titane,’ directed by French genre pioneer Julia Ducournau, is a bold horror vision — a portrayal of a serial killer pregnant by a car that disguises her gender and goes incognito as a lonely fireman’s long-lost son — that is likely to cause a stir when it hits theatres. 

Lee read out the recipient of the top prize instead of announcing the best actor award, which seemed to be an oversight.

If verified at the end of the night, Julia Ducournau will become only the second female director to receive the festival’s top prize.

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After Lee announced ‘Titane,’ there was a lot of yelling and commotion, but Ducournau did not walk to the platform to accept. Other prizes were given out while the event progressed, but Lee was seen holding his head in his hands.

The blunder put the rest of the programme into a tailspin, depriving the awards of their customary tension but generating a totally unanticipated atmosphere as people in the room attempted to figure out how to get the train back on track.

Caleb Landry Jones, star of ‘Nitram,’ was the first to accept an award, winning best actor for his remarkable performance as the perpetrator of the Australian Port Arthur Massacre. Renate Reinsve won the award for best actress for her work in ‘The Worst Person in the World.’

Nadav Lapid’s ‘Ahed’s Knee’ and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s ‘Memoria’ received special jury awards.

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Jury president Spike Lee chaired a majority-female team, which included French-Senegalese actor-director Mati Diop, American actor-filmmaker Maggie Gyllenhaal, Austrian director Jessica Hausner, French actor-helmer Mélanie Laurent, Brazilian helmer Kleber Mendonça Filho, French actor Tahar Rahim, and South Korean actor Song Kang-ho and cult French singer Mylene Farmer.

Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovi’s ‘Murina,’ a Croatian coming-of-age drama about a young lady managing her attraction to a stranger who comes on her lonely island, won Cannes’ coveted first-feature prize, the Camera d’Or. Martin Scorsese produced the Directors’ Fortnight discovery, which was chosen by a special jury led by Mélanie Thierry (‘Tralala’) from among 31 premiere films spanning all sections of the festival.

The closing ceremony at Cannes brings to a close 12 days of red-carpet premieres, regular COVID-19 testing for many participants, and the first major film festival to be held in practically its normal manner since the pandemic began. Cannes pressed ahead with an ambitious schedule of world cinema despite lower attendance and mandatory mask-wearing in cinemas. The pandemic forced the cancellation of last year’s Cannes Film Festival.

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There are 24 films competing for the Palme d’Or. Although the jury’s deliberations are secret and undisclosed, this does not prevent a broad range of forecasts, guesses, and betting odds from being made. This year’s film festival had a solid lineup of several renowned international directors, but no obvious favourite emerged.