Cannes Film Festival 2017: here are the big winners at the main awards

the beguiled cannes

The 2017 Cannes Film Festival has come to a close, and all the artsiest of the artsy have celebrated their wins, regretted their losses and bagged some film concepts that started on Tumblr.

So if you’ve not been keeping up with the little town in France, here’s who won big in the festival’s main competition.

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The Palme d’Or: The Square, Ruben Östlund

Swedish film The Square won the coveted Palme d’Or in a surprise upset. The satirical drama was up against Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled, Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here and Netflix’s controversial entries Okja and The Meyerowitz Stories, among others.

Directed by Ruben Östlund, The Square is about Christian, a man who converts the Stockholm Palace into an art gallery after the fall of the Swedish Monarchy. When he hires a PR company to promote an installation, drama ensues.

It apparently explores themes of political correctness, and the plight of a modern man.

Starring Elizabeth Moss and Dominic West, The Square represents a rare win for comedy.

Grand Prix: 120 Beats Per Minute, Robin Campillo

The second-most prestigious award went to the French 120 Beats Per Minute, directed by Robin Campillo, whom many pegged for the Palme d’Or.

Campillo described himself as “an ACT UP militant in the ’90s,” who fought for legislation, medical research and treatment for the AIDS pandemic in Paris.

Jury Prize: Loveless, Andrey Zvyagintsev

The Jury Prize used to be for the second best film in competition, but now it’s seen as the third-most prestigious prize at the festival, behind the Palme d’Or and the Grand Prix.

This year, the prize went to Russian film Loveless, directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev. It follows a married couple, in the midst of a heated divorce, who are forced to look for their missing child when the police won’t help them.

The film has racked up an impressive 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, with a critic from IndieWire calling it “absorbing even when it doesn’t go anywhere.”

Best director: Sofia Coppola, The Beguiled

Sofia Coppola was the second woman ever to win best director at Cannes, scoring the award for her remake of the eponymous 1971 film The Beguiled.

It stars Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning and Colin Farrell and was quick to woo critics at the festival.

Jane Campion, the only woman to have directed a Palme d’Or winnertold Vulture this week that her record is “insane.”

“Too long!” she said, referring to how she won for The Piano back in 1993. “Twenty-four years! And before that, there was no one.”

Best actor: Joaquin Phoenix, You Were Never Really Here

Directed by Lynne Ramsay, You Were Never Really Here tells the story of a war veteran determined to save a young girl from a sex trafficking ring.

In a bit of juicy celebrity gossip, Phoenix and his long-rumoured girlfriend Rooney Mara finally made their relationship public at the festival.

And in a charming moment, Phoenix seemed completely caught off-guard by his win.

Best actress: Diane Kruger, In the Fade

In the Fade is a German-language film directed by Fatih Akin. The film centres on Katja, a woman who lost her family to an anti-immigrant terror attack.

The film has received mixed reviews on Rotten Tomatoes — currently sitting on a square 50% — but the jurors at Cannes saw something in Kruger’s performance, choosing her over favourite Nicole Kidman.

Best screenplay: The Killing Of A Sacred Deer & You Were Never Really Here

Best screenplay was a tie win this year going to Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou for The Killing of a Sacred Deer, as well as Lynne Ramsay for You Were Never Really Here.

The former is the second film in the competition starring both Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman. It tells of a doctor who adopts a teenage boy into his family, but as the young man grows more and more sinister, the doctor is forced to make a difficult decision.

Short Film Palme d’Or: A Gentle Night, Qui Yang

Qui Yang is the first Chinese director to win the Short Film Palme d’Or for the short A Gentle Night.

“In a nameless Chinese city, a mother with her daughter missing, refuses to go gentle into this good night,” reads the description.

A special mention was awarded to The Ceiling by Finnish director Teppo Airaksinen.

Camera d’Or: Jeune FemmeLeonor Serraille

The Golden Camera is awarded to the best debut feature film of a director who has not had any film over 60 minutes released theatrically.

This year the award went to Leonor Serraille for her film Jeune Femme.

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