Trailblazer Mati Diop has taken home Cannes Film Festival’s second-most prestigious prize. The French-Senegalese director made history as the first black female filmmaker to screen a feature in competition at the fest, and was named the winner of the Grand Prix for “Atlantics.”
Juror Elle Fanning described the drama about the refugee crisis as “a beautiful fable,” per Variety. The “Teen Spirit” star explained, “Though it deals with these issues, it also felt personal and vulnerable, very emotional and just quite precious.”
A press release announced that Netflix has acquired worldwide rights to “Atlantics,” excluding China, Benelux, Switzerland, Russia, and France. No word on when to expect the pic, which marks Diop’s feature directorial debut.
Céline Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” also made history. The period pic scored the Queer Palm, a first for a woman-helmed film. Set on an isolated island in 18th century northern France, the drama –which also won the Best Screenplay Award — centers on the relationship between a female painter and the reluctant bride she’s commissioned to paint. Neon and Hulu snagged North American rights to “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” following its premiere at the fest. “Girlhood” and “Tomboy” are among the French filmmaker’s previous features.
SXSW Documentary Feature Competition and Audience Award winner “For Sama” received the Prix L’Œil d’Or for Best Documentary. Directed by Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts, the doc chronicles five years of the Syrian revolution in Aleppo. “I was determined to document the horrors of this war, to show the world what was happening in the hope that the world would act,” al-Kateab told us. “I want people to understand that while this is my story and shows what happened to me and my family, our experience is not unusual. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians experienced the same thing and are still doing so today.”
As previously announced, Rebecca Zlotowski’s French Riviera-set coming-of-age drama “An Easy Girl” won the Directors’ Fortnight prize for best French-language film, and Louise Courvoisier’s “Mano a Mano,” a short about acrobats, took home the top prize from the Cinéfondation program.
