Festival de Cannes

01/27/2022 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 01/27/2022 05:55

The 2021 Selection around the world

As is the case at the beginning of every year, the news is full of stories about nominations and awards given out by the major film academies, and we start to get a picture of which films will dominate the awards season for 2021 films.

Before turning to the 2022 Selection, now is the moment for the Festival de Cannes to look back on the prizes that the 2021 films have already won and to wish the best of luck to all those films in the festivals and ceremonies to come.

Long live the 2020 Selection!

In 2020, while the pandemic made it impossible for the Festival to be held as usual, there was nonetheless a Selection that served to promote these films at various festivals and awards ceremonies. (For more info, see ► The 2020 Official Selection Across the World)

To this day, around a dozen films from this selection continue to distinguish themselves around the world, as can be seen by the recent success at the European Film Awards of Francis Lee's AMMONITE and Steve McQueen's mini-series SMALL AXE, the first two episodes of which - MANGROVE and LOVERS ROCK - featured in the Cannes 2020 Selection. Viggo Mortensen's FALLING and Fernando Trueba's EL OLVIDO QUE SEREMOS (FORGOTTEN WE'LL BE) are nominated for the 2022 Goyas. And Xavier de Lauzanne's 9 JOURS A RAQQA, Samir Guesmi's IBRAHIM and Kamen Kalev's FEBRUARY were all nominated for the 2022 Lumières Awards, where Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh's GAGARINE (GAGARIN) took home the Lumière Award for Best First Film.

More particularly, Jonas Poher Rasmussen's FLEE, winner of four prizes at the European Film Awards, is in the running for the Oscar for both Best International Feature Film and Best Documentary Feature.

A 2021 Selection that has already won big

In July 2021, the Festival de Cannes returned to the Croisette. This reunion with cinema featured a historically rich and ambitious programme for the Festival's 74th edition. Its films travelled throughout France, Europe and around the world for the occassion of other festivals (notably Deauville, San Sebastian, Sitges and Toronto, where they were particularly appreciated). These films have already won over 230 awards around the world.

Some recent examples include Julia Ducournau's TITANE, Sebastian Meise's GROSSE FREIHEIT (GREAT FREEDOM), Kira Kovalenko's RAZZHIMAYA KULAKI (UNCLENCHING THE FISTS), Eskil Vogt's THE INNOCENTS and Valdimar Jóhansson's LAMB, all of which triumphed in December at the European Film Awards, taking home six awards in total. And on 10 January, Ryusuke Hamaguchi's DRIVE MY CAR, the most decorated film from Cannes 2021, added a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film to its impressive list of honours.

The top 10 most award-winning films from the 2021 Selection

Success in theatres

In the current context, where the film industry has had difficulty recovering from Covid-19 and where theatres have been in difficulty due to restrictions that are still in place, we would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the excellent showings this past autumn of BAC NORD, OSS 117 (FROM AFRICA WITH LOVE) and ALINE (ALINE, THE VOICE OF LOVE), each of which drew over a million spectators in France.

In the US, we have been able to see a "Palme d'or effect" with the record-breaking release of TITANE stateside. On its first weekend, Julia Ducournau's film raked in over 530,000 dollars at the box office, the fourth best debut for a Palme d'or winner in the United states, trailing only Michael Moore's FARHENHEIT 9/11, Quentin Tarantino's PULP FICTION and David Lynch's WILD AT HEART. A week later, TITANE reached the top 10 at the US box office, crossing the threshold of over one million dollars in earnings. An exploit that only three other French productions had ever managed, including Paul Verhoeven's ELLE in 2016 and Céline Sciamma's PORTRAIT DE LA JEUNE FILLE EN FEU (PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE).

More recently, Marie Amiguet and Vincent Munier's LA PANTHÈRE DES NEIGES (THE VELVET QUEEN), which came out on 15 December 2021, saw 108,251 entries in France in its first week of release, placing it 8th in the country's box office, behind massive American movies like SPIDER MAN and WEST SIDE STORY. Well-earned word of mouth for this maginifenct journey to the Tibetan plateau, which has had 400,000 entries so far.

Acclaim from the critics

As far as the press is concerned, the 2021 Selection won over the American critics. The New York Film Critics Circle chose DRIVE MY CAR as the Best Film of the year and VERDENS VERSTE MENNESKE (THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD) as the Best Foreign-Language Film. Two films that also distinguished themselves among the National Society of Critics, which gave four awards to DRIVE MY CAR (Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor for Hidetoshi Nishijima and Best Screenplay), as well as Best Supporting Actor to Anders Danielsen Lie for his performance in VERDENS VERSTE MENNESKE (THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD). Finally, Jonas Poher Rasmussen's FLEE, a 2020 Festival de Cannes selection, was named Best Nonfiction Film by theNational Society of Critics.

Among the nominees for the 27th ceremony of the Critics' Choice Awards (the date of which is yet to be announced), we find Wes Anderson's THE FRENCH DISPATCH up for Best Comedy and Best Production Design, FLEE competing for Best Animated Feature and four films that made their worldwide debut at Cannes will be vying for Best Foreign Language Film: GHAHREMAN (A HERO), DRIVE MY CAR, FLEE andVERDENS VERSTE MENNESKE (THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD).

At the 27th Lumières Awards ceremony, which took place in Paris on 17 January, the international press acknowledged the year's French productions. Of the 13 awards handed out, nine were won by films from the Cannes 2020 or 2021 Selections. Leos Carax's ANNETTE won three awards: Best Director, Best Cinematography for Caroline Champetier and Best Music for SPARKS, making it the film with the most awards at this edition of the Lumières.

  • Benoit Magimel: Lumière Award for Best Actor for his role in DE SON VIVANT (PEACEFUL)
  • Agathe Rousselle: Lumière Award for Most Promising Actress for her role in TITANE
  • GAGARINE (GAGARIN): Lumière Award for Best First Film
  • LA PANTHÈRE DES NEIGES (THE VELVET QUEEN) by Marie Amiguet and Vincent Munier: Lumière Award for Best Documentary
  • LE SOMMET DES DIEUX (THE SUMMIT OF THE GODS) by Patrick Imbert: Lumière Award for Best Animated Film.
  • VERDENS VERSTE MENNESKE (THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD) by Joachim Trier: Lumière Award for Best International Coproduction.

Awards season: the journeys of Cannes films

European Film Awards

The 34th edition of the European Film Awards took place on 11 December 2021. Among the winners were five films from the 2021 Official Selection and three films from 2020, totalling 11 awards.

2021 Selection:

  • GROSSE FREIHEIT (GREAT FREEDOM) by Sebastian Meise: Best European Cinematography for Crystel Fournier; Best European Original Score for Nils Petter Molvaer and Peter Brötzmann
  • RAZZHIMAYA KULAKI(UNCLENCHING THE FISTS) by Kira Kovalenko: Best European Editing for Mukharam Kabulova
  • TITANE by Julia Ducournau: Best European Make-up and Hair for Flore Masson, Olivier Afonso, and Antoine Mancini
  • THE INNOCENTS by Eskil Vogt: Best European Sound for Gisle Tveito and Gustaf Berger.
  • LAMB by Valdimar Jóhannsson: Best European Visual Effects for Peter Hjorth and Fredrik Nord

2020 Selection:

  • AMMONITE by Francis Lee: Best European Costume Design for Michael O'Connor
  • SMALL AXE by Steve McQueen: European Innovative Storytelling Award for Steve McQueen
  • FLEE by Jonas Poher Rasmussen: Best European Documentary; Best European Animated Feature Film; European University Film Award

Golden Globes

The 79th Golden Globes took place on 10 January 2022.

2021 Selection:

  • DRIVE MY CAR by Ryusuke Hamaguchi: Best Foreign Language Film

2020 Selection:

  • SMALL AXE by Steve McQueen: Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Mini-Series or Television Film for John Boyega

Goya awards

The ceremony for the 36th Goya Awards will take place on 12 February 2022. Among the nominees are two films from the 2020 Official Selection.

2020 Selection:

  • FALLING by Viggo Mortensen: Best European Film
  • EL OLVIDO QUE SEREMONS (FORGOTTEN WE'LL BE) by Fernando Trueba: Best Ibero-American Film

César awards

The 47th César Awards will take place on 25 February 2022. It will be an edition that showcases the films revealed at Cannes, with 68 nominations, compared to 40 last year. Of the 42 feature films nominated, more than half were a part of the 2020 and 2021 Official Selections. In total 23 films will compete in all "feature film" categories of the César Awards.

Another notable fact is that 11 films have more than one nomination. Notably ANNETTE, ALINE (ALINE, THE VOICE OF LOVE) and BAC NORD, all up for the César for Best Film and Best Director, and which - with 11, 10 and 7 nominations, respectively - rank among the top 4 most nominated films this year.

Finally, the 47th César Awards will be the occasion to spotlight talents revealed on the Croisette: GAGARINE (GAGARIN), LA PANTHÈRE DES NEIGES (THE VELVET QUEEN) and SLALOM are all up for the César for Best First Feature Film. And as for the Most Promising Actor and Actress categories, 5 of the 10 nominees saw their careers take off at Cannes. [For more information ► Cannes 2021: Disoveries and Revelations]

2021 Selection:

  • ANNETTE by Leos Carax: Best Film, Best Actor for Adam Driver, Best Original Screenplay, Best Music Written for a Film, Best Sound, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Visual Effects, Best Director
  • ALINE (ALINE, THE VOICE OF LOVE) by Valérie Lemercier: Best Film, Best Actress for Valérie Lemercier, Best Supporting Actress for Danielle Fichaud, Best Supporting Actor for Sylvain Marcel, Best Original Screenplay, Best Sound, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Visual Effects, Best Director
  • BAC NORD by Cédric Jimenez: Best Actor for Gilles Lellouche, Best Supporting Actor for François Civil and Karim Leklou, Best Music Written for a Film, Best Editing, Best Director
  • LA FRACTURE (THE DIVIDE) by Catherine Corsini: Best Actress for Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Best Actor for Pio Marmaï, Best Supporting Actress for Aissatou Diallo Sagna, Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Film
  • LES OLYMPIADES (PARIS 13TH DISTRICT) by Jacques Audiard: Most Promising Actress for Lucie Zhang, Most Promising Actor for Makita Samba, Best Adaptation, Best Music Written for a Film, Best Cinematography
  • ONODA, 10 000 NUITS DANS LA JUNGLE (ONODA: 10,000 NIGHTS IN THE JUNGLE) by Arthur Harari: Best Film, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Director
  • TITANE by Julia Ducournau: Most Promising Actress for Agathe Rousselle, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Director
  • LA PANTHÈRE DES NEIGES (THE VELVET QUEEN): Best Music Written for a Film, Best Documentary Film, Best First Feature Film
  • LES INTRANQUILLES (THE RESTLESS) by Joachim Lafosse: Best Actress for Leïla Bekhti, Best Actor for Damien Bonnard
  • SERRE MOI FORT (HOLD ME TIGHT) by Mathieu Amalric: Best Actress for Vicky Krieps, Best Adaptation
  • ANIMAL by Cyril Dion: Best Documentary Film
  • BIGGER THAN US by Flore Vasseur: Best Documentary Film
  • HYTTI NRO 6 (COMPARTMENT NO.6) by Juho Kuosmanen: Best Foreign Film
  • DE SON VIVANT (PEACEFUL) by Emmanuelle Bercot: Best Actor for Benoît Magimel
  • DRIVE MY CAR by Ryusuke Hamaguchi: Best Foreign Film
  • FRANCE by Bruno Dumont: Best Actress for Léa Seydoux
  • JULIE (EN 12 CHAPITRES) (THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD) by Joachim Trier: Best Foreign Film
  • LE SOMMET DES DIEUX (THE SUMMIT OF THE GODS) by Patrick Imbert: Best Animated Film
  • SUPRÊMES by Audrey Estrougo: Most Promising Actor for Sandor Funtek

2020 Selection:

independent Spirit Awards

The ceremony for the 37th Independent Spirit Awards will take place on 7 March 2022. Among the nominees are four films from Cannes 2021 and two from Cannes 2020.

2021 Selection:

  • RED ROCKET by Sean Baker: Best Male Lead for Simon Rex, Best Supporting Actress for Suzanna Son
  • BLUE BAYOU by Justin Chon: Best Cinematography
  • HYTTI NRO 6 (COMPARTMENT NO.6) by Juho Kuosmanen: Best International Film
  • DRIVE MY CAR by Ryusuke Hamaguchi: Best International Film

2020 Selection:

  • FLEE by Jonas Poher Rasmussen: Best Documentary
  • PLEASURE by Ninja Thyberg: Best Director for Ninja Thyberg, Best Supporting Female for Revika Reustle

BAFTA awards

The ceremony for the 75th BAFTA Awards will take place on 13 March 2022.

►Check back on 3 February for the announcement of nominees.

the Oscars

On 27 March 2022, the 94th edition of the Oscars will close out the awards season.

After the success of Palme d'or winner PARASITE by Bong Joon-ho in 2019 (Oscar for Best Film, Best Director, Best International Feature Film and Best Original Screenplay) and Thomas Vinterberg's DRUK (ANOTHER ROUND) in 2020, films from Cannes still have pride of place among the international films presented to the Oscars.

This year, they are historically well represented in the Best International Film category with nine of the 15 films from the Offical Selection still in the running for this high distinction. (For more information ► The Cannes films en route for the 2022 Oscars)

►Check back on 8 February to discover the list of nominated films.