This is my sixth edition of Cannes in nearly 10 years, since DMovies was first founded in February 2015. During every iteration of the event, I watched nearly all the films in the Official Competition. This is the first year I managed to cover all 23, with a little helping hand from Eoghan Lyng (in addition to covering all the Un Certain Regard movies, our Irish writer reviewed two of the Official Competition movies and more. In total, we reviewed more than 50 brand new films exclusively for. You can read the Official Competition reviews by clicking here, and you can read our full coverage right here, Eoghan’s verdict piece can be found right here.

All in all, this was the weakest selection I have ever encountered (a view shared by Eoghan, who’s just in his second year). That was particularly noticeable, since last year’s was the strongest selection I ever saw.

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The big winners

There were no particularly big surprises amongst the winners, with the critics’ favourite rightfully earning the most coveted prizes. Panahi winning the Palme d’Or sent a message to fascists, their censors and thugs. It felt powerful and heartfelt. Below are the winners of the awards given our by the Festival’s official jury (headed by Juliette Binoche, reprising her role in the Berlinale just six years ago).

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• Palme d’Or – It Was Just an Accident (Jafar Panahi);
• Grand Prix – Sentimental Value (Joachim Trier);
• Jury Prize Ex-Aequo – Sirat (Oliver Laxe, pictured below);
• Jury Prize Ex-Aequo – Sound of Falling (Mascha Schilinski);
• Best Director – The Secret Anget (Kleber Mendonca Filho);
• Best Screenplay – Jean Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne of The Young Mother’s Home (also directed by the Belgian duo);
• Best Actress – Nadia Melliti of The Little Sister (Hafsia Herzi);
• Best Actor – Wagner Moura of The Secret Agent (Kleber Mendonca Filho); and
• Special Award – Resurrection (Bi Gan).

Overall, this represents a very decent combination of movie. I was just surprised that my dirty favourite Romeria (Carla Simon; pictured at the top of this article) left empty-handed. This brutally honest, semi-autobiographical film about emotional pilgrimage and vicarious memories deserved more. Conversely, I was surprised that Resurrection made it to the list, a film that I hold for little more than studio imagery on steroids, and Chinese government propaganda.

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Outside the Competition, and the cold turkeys

At least two non-competitive films deserve a mention. Raoul Peck’s Orwell: 2+2=5 is a superb documenary about the machinations of authoritarianism and media manipulation, under the magnifying lenses of George Orwell. Kirill Serebrennikov’s The Disappearance of Josef Mengele offered hauntingly real insight into the life of one of the most perverse figures of the Third Reich, and how he survived the war for more than three decades.

At the other end of the spectrum were the cold turkeys. Sadly, both of them were LGBT+ films (if very different ones). British-American The History of Sound (Oliver Hermanus) tells the story of two folk singers in love, in the New England of the 1910s – it represents gay cinema at its most commercial, derivative and uninspiring. Sebastian Lelio’s The Wave is even worse/ This feminist music is so unimaginative and didactic that at times it looks like the director set out to mock feminists and the identity movement. A real misfire for a taklented director such as Lelio.