The victory of Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda brought surprise to the Cannes Film Festival when he triumphed with his drama "Shoplifters" on the final night of the 71st edition of the prestigious French festival. When the director went on stage to receive the award, he spoke in Japanese and dedicated the victory to the entire production team involved in the film.
The story of this film focuses on a group of Tokyo misfits and crooks who form an alternative family by taking donations for street children. This film has been rated as the "Oliver Twist" of modern times. The film stars Lily Franky and Sakura Ando, and is about a family that ekes out a living by shoplifting, until they are faced with poverty. Osamu Shibata (Franky), who works part-time, is married to Nobuyo (Ando), who has a low-paying job, but the family mostly depends on his grandmother's pension. Osamu takes his son to shoplift and finds a homeless girl, Yuri. Osamu takes Yuri home, where the family informally adopts him. However, the Tokyo Police notice that Yuri is missing and start a search.
Meanwhile, the American director Spike Lee received the grand jury prize "Grand Prix" for his film "BlacKkKlansman". The film tells the story of a black policeman, who is infiltrated in the "Klu Klux Klan". Kazakhstan's Samal Yeslyamova won Best Actress for her role as a single, unemployed mother in Sergey Dvortsevoy's Ayka. American actor Marcello Fonte received the best actor award at Cannes for his performance in the film "Dogman" Matteo Garrone. Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski won the award for best director with his film "Cold War," a love story set in the mid-40s and 50s, when Poland was under communist rule. In 2017, the main prize went to the Swedish satire "The Square", which was then nominated for an "Oscar".
Beyond the award winners, the 71st edition of the Cannes festival, which took place from May 8 to 19, will be remembered for some off-screen moments. This was the first edition of the Cannes festival since the "#metoo" movement was created, after the scandal of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, which received numerous accusations of sexual harassment from dozens of women. On the closing night of the festival, actress Asia Argento said she was one of the women who was forced to have sex with Weinstein in 1977, when she was 21 years old. The alleged rape, she said, happened during the Cannes festival.
"This festival has been a hunting ground for him. I want to make a prediction: Harvey Weinstein will never be welcome here again," said Argento.
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"Shoplifters" wins the Palme d'Or at Cannes
After the Weinstein scandal broke, dozens of other women in the film industry came forward and accused him of abusing his power in search of sexual favors.
Hollywood stars including Cate Blanchett, Kristen Stewart, Helen Mirren and Salma Hayek, as well as directors Ava DuVernay and Patty Jenkins, staged a red carpet protest demanding equal business opportunities and "safe workplaces" for all women and men. Australian actress Cate Blanchett has been the head of the jury this year, while American actress Kristen Stewart and director Ava DuVernay have been members of the jury. The festival's organizers also signed a formal pledge to encourage more gender equality in its selection by 2020, saying they hope it will help set a standard in the industry. Cannes has for years been accused of a gender imbalance in the selection of films for screening during festival nights (DW).
