Cannes 2026 – Fjord wins Palme d’or; Aishwarya Rai Bachchan walks red carpet, our wrap…
Hotly tipped favourite takes top prize…
Cannes 11.20pm
CRISTIAN MUNGIU has just finished addressing the packed auditorium here in Cannes and the Romanian director has just collected his Palme d’Or – he will be doing a round of media interviews close to where www.asuanculturevulture.com is writing this… In all 22 films competed for the prize this year…
The biggest cheer of the night in the press room has been for the First Film Award – known as the Camera D’or going to Marie-Clementine Dusabejambo for ‘Ben’Imana’.
The film is about the post-genocide society in Rwanda in 2012 and is produced by Rwanda, Gabon, France, Norway and the Ivory Coast. At the time of filing this, the winner Mungiu had yet to enter the winners’ press conference – they very last port of call for interviews – another large cheer was raised when the Spanish duo behind ‘The Black Ball‘ entered the room – see below for more. The live feed has ceased but the winners press conference continues.
Other award winners are – ‘Minotaur‘ by Andrei Zviaguintsev who collected the Grand Prix.
The best directors award is shared by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi for ‘La Bola Negra‘ (‘The Black Ball‘) and Panel Pawlikowski for ‘Fatherland’.
The best screenplay award was presented to Emmanuel Marre who is behind ‘Notre Salut‘
The Jury Prize was handed to ‘Das Getraumte Absentuer‘ made by Valeska Grisebach.
The Best Performance by a woman was shared by Virginie Emir and Tao Okamoto for ‘Soudain‘ by Hamaguchi Rysuke.
The Best Performance by a male was jointly awarded to Emmanuel Macchia and Valentin Campagne – who feature in the film ‘Coward‘ by Lukas Dhont.
The Short Film Palme D’Or was collected by Federico Luis for ‘Para Los Contrincantes’.
Last night, it was announced that the Nepali film ‘Elephants in the Fog‘ had been awarded the Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section – this is just below the Competition level and recognises new and emerging film directors, who may have only made one or two films. Director Abinash Bikram Shah has written several but this is his first as a director. We will have a full page report and review about ‘Elephants in the Fog’ soon. It is about a transgender communit, known as Kinnear, fighting for survival and dignity in the tiny Himalayan nation.
We still have one more video of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan walking the Red Carpet here for the final time – at the outset of the Closing Ceremony tonight – it should drop shortly.
Also offering an amazing insight into how to own a Red Carpet – by none other than Bollywood star Urvashi Rautela – that should drop soon!
In addition, we also have two absorbing and fascinating discussions with the filmmakers behind the 40 year old film from India, ‘Report to Mother‘ which featured as Cannes Classic. The film is known in Malayalam, the language of the film, as ‘Amma Ariyan’ – editor Bina Paul and lead actor Joy Mathew discuss the legacy and vision of the late director John Abraham from Kerala who passed away not long after the film was complete in 1986. They also address fellow Keralites in Malayalam – coming to Instagram soon!
Make sure you’re connected to us and hit the bell button on YouTube to know when these videos drop there and check our Instagram feed for all our Reels from Cannes 79. You can find all our follow tabs on the home page of the website.
Editor Sailesh Ram will publish a more personal reflective piece about covering this year’s film festival – when there were no Indian or British films in Official Selection, apart from in the film school student section where Mehar Malhotra’s ‘Shadows of the Moonless Nights‘ was selected.
More soon from our coverage of Cannes 79 – Keep following The Bird as it flies high!
