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The Cannes Festival 2022: An Ode to Peace and Hope

Today, when the 75th Cannes Film Festival is over, it’s time to draw a summary of what happened during this cinematic week.

New Names
Each festival seeks to discover new names and cinematic domains. In the main competition of this year’s Cannes, there were two names that were relatively new to the public. Danish-Iranian Ali Abbasi made his directorial debut at the Berlinale in 2016, but went more or less unnoticed. Two years later, however, his second film "At the Edge of the Worlds" was featured during the Cannes competition "Un Certain Regard" and became a bomb, first winning this program, and then receiving nominations for the European Film Award, "Saturn" and "Oscar". This year, his "Holy Spider" has become a hit not only with the press but also on the film market. Another person of interest is Belgian Lucas Dhont – a child of Cannes. His feature debut “Girl” was first shown at “Un Certain Regard” at Cannes in 2018, but didn’t win the "Golden Camera" of the festival for the best debut. The film received three other important awards - the award for male role, the FIPRESCI award and the queer palm. In 2022, everything changed as Dhont got into the main competition with his new film "Close". As a result of their brilliant creative work, both Abbasi and Dhont were on the list of Cannes winners.

Business
After two pandemic years, the business dreamed of returning to the Côte d'Azur. Prior to the start of the festival, it was announced that 370 groups and trade companies from 60 countries opened their booths at Village International and presenting over 2,500 projects.

Politics
The main, or rather the only, modern political theme has been strong during this year’s festival. Everyone looked at Cannes as the first of the big five festivals to fulfill its promises of support for Ukraine.

Of course, Ukraine was the most important player this year. From films about Ukraine or from Ukraine, including “The View of a Moth” by Maxim Nakonechny in “Un Certain Regard”, “Natural History of Destruction” by Sergei Loznitsa and “Mariupoli 2” by Mantas Kvedaravicius among the special screenings, and “Pamfir” by Dmitry Sukholitky-Sobchuk in “Directors' Fortnight” to President Volodymyr Zelensky's address on the responsibility of cinema, and “Ukraine Day”, the country was presented in a way that would inspire altruism and hope in the global film industry.

The list of Cannes 2022 winners:

Palme d’Or: “Triangle of Sadness” by Ruben Östlund

Grand Prix: “Close” by Lukas Dhont and “Stars at Noon” by Claire Denis

Special Prize for Cannes’ 75th anniversary: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, “Tori and Lokita”

Jury Prize: “EO” and “Le Otto Montagne”

Best Actress: Zar Amir Ebrahimi, “Holy Spider”

Best Actor: Song Kang Ho, “Broker”

Best Director: Park Chan-wook, “Decision to Leave”

Best Screenplay: “Boy from Heaven”

Camera d’Or: “War Pony,” directed by Gina Gammell and Riley Keough

Short Film Palme d’Or: “The Water Murmurs”

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