Cannes Prizes Romanian, Russian Films, Snubs US
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Cannes Film Festival awarded its second career Palme d’Or to Romanian director Cristian Mungiu for Fjord, and gave the Grand Prix to Russian dissident Andrei Zviaguintsev for Minotaur.
- The Dreamed Adventure earned the Jury Prize, becoming the only female‑directed film to win in Cannes’s main competition this year, while La Bola Negra shared the Best Director award and All Of A Sudden secured Best Actress for its two leads.
- James Gray’s American thriller Paper Tiger, one of only two U.S. films in competition, left Cannes empty‑handed for the sixth time, despite a strong festival run and a distribution deal with Neon.
- Ira Sachs’s drama A Man In Love also received no Cannes prize, but its lead Rami Malek is being touted for potential Best Actor nominations during awards season.
- Jury announced six of the seven major awards in the festival’s final five days, creating a late‑stage concentration of honors that could still shape Oscar buzz, though less dramatically than in previous years.
Why it matters: European filmmakers gain prestige and Oscar momentum, while U.S. directors lose Cannes exposure that could boost awards campaigns; the festival’s late‑stage prize clustering may modestly affect Oscar voting patterns, but the overall buzz is weaker than in recent editions.
