Strong Asian flavour to Cannes awards; Ruben Ostlund gets his second Palme d'Or

Hours after Delhis Shaunak Sen became the second Indian in two years to win the Golden Eye for the best documentary film the muchawaited top awards of the 75th Cannes Film Festival were announced on Saturday nightSwedish filmmaker Ruben Ostlund won his second Palme dOr for Triangle of Sadness a biting satire of the shallow worlds of fashion and wealth bringing the 2022 Cannes Film Festival to a close reports VarietyOstlunds followup to his 2017 Palmewinning The Square according to Variety takes a boat full of shallow people models millionaires and their various trophy partners and abandons them in deep water forcing the survivors to reconstruct a desertisland society where money holds no power In such a system for better or worse beauty becomes the most valuable assetThe jury spread the wealth with its awards presenting three more prizes than is typically expected of them two ties and a special 75th anniversary awardTying for second place celebrated French director Claire Deniss Stars at Noon which was clearly not very popular in the press room and Belgian director Lukas Dhonts Close shared the Grand PrixDeniss divisive but undeniably seductive tropical drama according to Variety has Margaret Qualley Hollywood star Andie MacDowells daughter play an American journalist whose assignment in Nicaragua has run its course forcing her to use her wits and wiles to find a way out of the country with the help of a seductive stranger Joe Alwyn more famous as Taylor Swifts partnerClose on the other hand is a more straightforward and less controversial film which moved many to tears with its portrayal of a tragic rift between two 13yearold friendsKorean director Park ChanWook won the best director honours for Decision to Leave described by Variety as a Hitchcockian thriller in which a detective falls for the widow of a murder victim He convinces himself that the suspect is innocent but then they face one another again years later when her second husband also dies under violent circumstancesParks countryman Parasite star Song Kangho won best actor for his role in Broker Song reports Variety plays a man who sells abandoned babies on the black market in Japanese director Koreeda Hirokazus first Koreanmade featureZar AmirEbrahimi who plays an Iranian reporter risking her own life to catch a serial killer in Holy Spider was named the best actress The tense truecrime thriller accoring to Variety is about a man who targeted prostitutes and it turns more chilling when he is arrested and audiences realise that a segment of society supports his actions against sex workersThe strong Asian flavour of the awards was completed by Pakistans Joyland directed by Saim Sadiq getting the Queer Palm and Nepalese director Abinash Bikram Shahs Lori getting a special mention in the Short Films section apart from of course the Golden Eye that Shaunaq Sen got for his documentary All That BreathesTarik Saleh won the screenplay award for Boy From Heaven which imagines a conspiracy by the Egyptian government to meddle in the appointment of a new grand imamBanned from Egypt Saleh was obliged to shoot the film in Turkey I want to dedicate this prize to the young filmmakers in Egypt to raise your voices and tell your stories he said in his acceptance speechThe Camera dOr for best first film went to War Pony by Gina Gammell and Riley Keough who incidentally is Elvis Presleys granddaughter It tells the story of two young men from the Oglala Lakota tribe in South Dakota USA and was written and made in close collaboration with the Native American community it depicts A special mention was awarded another debut Japanese director Hayakawa Chies Plan 75 which imagines a future in which elderly citizens can elect to be euthanisedIn an unusual move says Variety the jury prize was presented as a tie between The Eight Mountains and EOCodirected by Belgian couple Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch who made out on stage midspeech The Eight Mountains tracks the friendship between two Italian boys one from the city and the other a shepherd boy from the Alps across decadesPolish director Jerzy Skolimowskis EO is all about the transEuropean journey of a donkey through a series of challenging and often cruel interactions with various humansJury president Vincent Lindon who won Cannes best actor honours in 2015 assured the crowd the the Palme dOr winner was selected with a strong majority Lindon copresented the awards with his fellow jurors Iranian director Asghar Farhadi English actordirector Rebecca Hall French director Ladj Ly American director Jeff Nichols Deepika Padukone Swedish star Noomi Rapace Norwegian director Joachim Trier and Italian actordirector Jasmine TrincaThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without 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