Latest news with #Palmed'Or
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Jafar Panahi Wins Cannes Palme d'Or for ‘It Was Just an Accident'
Dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi has won the Palme d'Or for best film for It Was Just an Accident at the 78th Cannes international film festival. Panahi, who just a few years ago was imprisoned in Tehran and under a 20-year travel and work ban, returned triumphantly to Cannes, accepting his award from jury president (and vocal Panahi fan) Juliette Binoche. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'Romería' Review: Carla Simón Dives Deep Into Painful Family History in an Act of Reclamation That's Equal Parts Shimmering and Meandering 'Magellan' Review: Gael Garcia Bernal Plays the Famous Explorer in Lav Diaz's Exquisitely Shot Challenge of an Arthouse Epic Cannes: Oliver Laxe's 'Sirat' Sells Wide Internationally Panahi's film, his first since being released from prison in 2023, is a direct assault on Iran's authoritarian regime. The thriller follows a former political prisoner who kidnaps a man he believes to be his torturer and then debates with other dissidents whether to kill or forgive him. The win marks the sixth time in a row a film acquired by Neon for North America has won the Palme d'Or. Tom Quinn's indie outfit kept its Cannes streak going by picking up It Was Just an Accident earlier this week. With his Cannes win, Jafar Panahi has now completed the rare festival triple crown, winning the top prize at all three major European film festivals, following his Golden Lion win in Venice for The Circle (2000) and Berlin's Golden Bear for Taxi (2015). Panahi is only the fourth director — after Henri-Georges Clouzot, Michelangelo Antonioni and Robert Altman — to win the big three. The 2025 Cannes jury included actors Halle Berry, Jeremy Strong and Italy's Alba Rohrwacher; directors Dieudo Hamadi, Hong Sang-soo, Payal Kapadia and Carlos Reygadas; and French-Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani. The festival got its own dramatic twist ending early on Saturday when a regional power outage shut down the electrical grid serving Cannes and much of the surrounding region. The outage, apparently caused by deliberate sabotage on the electrical infrastructure, disrupted early morning screenings and forced hotels, shops and cafes in the city to close. But the festival was largely unaffected. The Palais, where the closing ceremony is held, switched to emergency power and carried on much as before. Cannes had a particularly strong lineup this year, with no single film the overall frontrunner going into the awards. Binoche began the ceremony by bestowing a special prize on Chinese director Bi Gan for Resurrection. Rohrwacher gave the Camera d'Or trophy for first feature to The President's Cake director Hasan Hadi, who is the first Iraqi director to win a prize in Cannes. John C. Reilly, in Cannes for the Un Certain Regard film Heads or Tails?, added a musical touch to the ceremony, breaking out into an English-language rendition of 'La Vie en Rose' when presenting best screenplay prize to two-time Palme d'Or winners Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne for the Belgian social drama Young Mothers. Brazilian actor Wagner Moura took best actor for his starring role in The Secret Agent, Kleber Mendonça Filho's 1970s-set Brazilian political thriller. In a rare double award, Filho also took best director for the feature. Newcomer Nadia Melliti beat out Jennifer Lawrence's turn in Lynne Ramsay's Die, My Love to take the best actress honor, playing the lead role in Hafsia Herzi's Muslim lesbian coming-of-age story The Little Sister. German director Mascha Schilinski won the Jury Prize for Sound of Falling, only her second film, an epic family drama set across four generations in the same rural farmhouse. She shared the honor with Spanish director Oliver Laxe for Sirat, a techno-infused apocalyptic drama set in the Moroccan desert. A full list of winners follows: Jafar Panahi for It Was Just an Accident Joachim Trier for Sentimental Value Mascha Schilinski for Sound of Falling and Oliver Laxe for Sirat (tie) Kleber Mendonça Filho for The Secret Agent Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne for Young Mothers Nadia Melliti for The Little Sister Wagner Moura for The Secret Agent Resurrection, dir. Bi Gan The President's Cake, dir: Hassan Hadi I'm Glad You're Dead Now, dir: Tawfeek Barhom Ali, dir. Adnan Al Rajeev Un Certain Regard PrizeThe Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo, dir. Diego Céspedes Jury PrizeA Poet, dir. Simón Mesa Soto Best DirectorOnce Upon a Time in Gaza, dir. Arab & Tarzan Nasser Best ScreenplayPillion, dir. Harry Lighton Best ActressI Only Rest in the Storm, dir. Pedro Pinho Best ActorFrank Dillane in Urchin, dir. Harris Dickinson Caméra d'Or for best first filmThe President's Cake, dir. Hassan Hadi Special MentionMy Father's Shadow, dir. Akinola Davies Jr La Cinef First PrizeFirst Summer, dir. Heo Gayoung (KAFA, South Korea) Second Prize12 Moments Before the Flag-Raising Ceremony, dir. Qu Zhizheng (Beijing Film Academy, China) Third PrizeGinger Boy, dir. Miki Tanaka (ENBU Seminar, Japan); Winter in March, dir. Natalia Mirzoyan (Estonian Academy of Arts, Estonia) (Tie) The Higher Technical Commission for Sound and Images CST Award for Best Young Female TechnicianÉponine Momenceau, director of photography for Connemara, dir. Alex Lutz CST Artist-Technician Award Ruben Impens, Director of Photography, and Stéphane Thiébaut, Sound Mixer, for Alpha, dir. Julia Ducournau Best of The Hollywood Reporter 13 of Tom Cruise's Most Jaw-Dropping Stunts Hollywood Stars Who Are One Award Away From an EGOT 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now
Kuwait Times
14 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Kuwait Times
Iran Cannes winner Panahi backs trucker strikes
Iranian director and screenwriter and producer Jafar Panahi poses with the trophy during a photocall after winning the Palme d'Or for the film "Un simple accident" (A Simple Accident) during the closing ceremony at the 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France.--AFP Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi backed week-long nationwide strikes by truckers Wednesday as a "loud call" to the authorities, after arriving home from his triumph at the Cannes film festival. Truck drivers across Iran were striking for a seventh day on Wednesday in a stoppage rare in its length and magnitude, seeking better conditions in a sector crucial for the economy in the Islamic republic. After starting last week in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, the strike action has spread across the country, according to reports by monitoring groups on social media and Persian-language media based outside Iran. The truck drivers are protesting a rise in insurance premiums, poor road security, high fuel prices and low freight rates, according to union statements cited by these media. "They are fed up. They have no choice but to go strike," Panahi wrote on Instagram, having returned to Iran on Monday after winning the Palme d'or for his latest film "It Was Just an Accident". "When thieves and illiterate people are put in charge, the result is this terrible situation: corruption and mismanagement in everything, from the economy and culture to the environment and politics," added Panahi. The acclaimed director was long banned from filmmaking and unable to leave Iran, having also spent time in prison due to his political stances. "This strike is a loud call to the government saying: 'Enough! Stop all this oppression and plunder'," he said. Persian-language television channels based outside Iran, including Iran International and Manoto, which are critical of the government, said the strike was continuing Wednesday, broadcasting images of deserted roads sent from inside Iran as well as trucks parked up in cities including the central city of Isfahan. It was not immediately possible to independently verify the images. Tankers carrying fuel from the major refinery in Abadan in western Iran have now joined the strike, Manoto said. Iran International also said some participants had been arrested in the western city of Kermanshah, following arrests earlier this week in the southern city of Shiraz. The same outlets also indicated that there have been strikes in other sectors in Iran, notably by bakers who are angered by early morning power cuts when they are baking bread. — AFP
Daily Maverick
19 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Maverick
From Cannes 2025: Five standout films you should watch next
With the Cannes Film Festival acting as a very early awards season indicator, these are the most acclaimed and notable films to put on your Must Watch List in 2025. The Cannes Film Festival is about more than Riviera-side schmoozing, 15-minute standing ovations and their booing flipside (plus the new addition of lengthy blackouts). The iconic film festival is an early indicator of potential award season contenders. Last year alone, Anora, which took home the festival's highest honour, the Palme d'Or, went on to win five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Fellow Oscar winners The Substance, controversial Emilia Pérez, and Animated Feature upset Flow all premiered at Cannes. Notably, before that, Bong Joon-ho's Parasite made the journey from Palme d'Or to Academy Award in 2019-2020, while legal drama-mystery Anatomy of a Fall picked up Best Original Screenplay at several awards ceremonies following its 2023 Palme d'Or win. The point is that it pays to keep an eye on what stands out at Cannes, whether competing (see the full 2025 winner's list here) or simply screening. These are the premieres from the 78th Festival de Cannes that you should keep a lookout for at local cinemas and film festivals in the coming months. Anti-authoritarianism earns accolades Film has always been a powerful medium to critique social and political injustice, and this year the Cannes main competition jury seemed eager to reward those movies vocal about power abuse and despotism. Case in point: the 2025 Palme d'Or went to It Was Just an Accident, from Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who has repeatedly been hit with filmmaking bans, travel restrictions and prison sentences from his country's authorities. Acclaim for It Was Just an Accident doesn't appear to be performative, though. Narratively straightforward, accessible, but also thought-provoking, the film sees an apparent everyman kidnapped by people who suspect that he may have been their prison torturer. Can they overrule their doubts and take revenge? Honourable mention: The only film to earn two awards at Cannes this year, The Secret Agent also features anti-totalitarian themes. Scoring Best Director for Kleber Mendonça Filho, and Best Actor for Narcos' Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent is a genre-hopping Brazilian thriller that explores how Carnival was used as a front in the 1970s to make the then-military dictatorship's opponents disappear. The latest auteur efforts For decades, the Cannes Film Festival has been catnip for the world's most acclaimed filmmakers. This year was no different, with Wes Anderson debuting his latest quirky all-star effort, The Phoenician Scheme, a few days before it comes to US cinemas on 30 May. Benicio del Toro plays a 1950s industrialist who, in the middle of a spate of assassination attempts, names his estranged daughter (Mia Threapleton), a nun, as his heir. The good news is that if you found Anderson's last few efforts over-styled and underwhelming, The Phoenician Scheme is apparently a return to enjoyable form. Largely thanks to Threapleton. Honourable mention: Spike Lee and Denzel Washington reunite for the first time in almost 20 years for Highest 2 Lowest, an English-language reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa's High and Low. Washington plays a successful New York City record producer forced into a ransom scenario that tests his morals. The film is already lined up for an Apple TV+ debut on 5 September. Queer experience on screens The Cannes Film Festival is always welcoming of LGBT+ content, even having an independent Queer Palm accolade for films that excel in their depiction of non cishet experience. There were several contenders for the award in 2025 (it eventually went to The Little Sister), but the most intriguing is the rule-bending romance Pillion. Described as a gay version of Babygirl, this directorial debut from Harry Lighton sees Harry Potter's Harry Melling enter into a sub/dom relationship with Alexander Skarsgård's aloof biker. It's kinky but also tender in its exploration of consensual power dynamics within a relationship. Honourable mention: South African filmmaker Oliver Hermanus, who previously made the likes of Moffie and Queer Palm winner Beauty (AKA Skoonheid), debuted historical gay romance The History of Sound at Cannes this year. Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor star as two men who connect over their mission to record American folk music circa World War I. The comparisons to Brokeback Mountain are there by default. A quick second shout-out also must go to Honey Don't!, a consciously B-grade detective comedy from Ethan Coen, which sees Margaret Qualley's lesbian private investigator hook up with Aubrey Plaza's cop. Charlie Day and Chris Evans also star. Of families and generations It's been called Arthouse with a capital A, but historical drama Sound of Falling, from German filmmaker Mascha Schilinski, emerges from Cannes heralded as something boldly original due to its storytelling approach – which dips into and interweaves the lives of four girls on a farm in northern Germany over the course of a century. It turns out that women's experience doesn't really change, with trauma having a way of seeping through time. Considered a grim watch, Sound of Falling was a tied winner of the Jury Prize (alongside Sirat), which is typically bestowed on up-and-coming filmmakers seen as driving the industry forward creatively. Honourable mention: The Grand Prize is Cannes's second highest honour and that went this year to Sentimental Value, from festival favourite Joachim Trier. Could this Norwegian drama, about the complex relationship between sisters, and daughters and fathers, finally earn Stellan Skarsgård an Oscar nomination? Also worthy of a Must Watch List spot is My Father's Shadow, the first ever Nigerian film to make it onto the festival's Official Selection. In his feature debut, British-Nigerian director Akinola Davies Jr. has told a semi-autobiographical tale with his brother Wale, set against the backdrop of the 1993 Nigerian election. Siblings spend a day with their estranged father (Sope Dirisu) and learn surprising things. The film earned a Camera d'Or Special Mention. One to talk about Finally, if you're looking for the most divisive movie release of Cannes 2025, that dubious honour has to go to Eddington, the latest from Hereditary, Midsommar, and Beau Is Afraid filmmaker Ari Aster. Is it an escalating parody of American divisiveness? Does it actually harbour MAGA leanings as it jeers at mask mandates and other liberal ideas? With a wider release set for July, you'll have to watch this moody modern Western, which pits Joaquin Phoenix's small-town sheriff against Pedro Pascal's mayor in the early days of the Covid pandemic, with their friends and neighbours taking sides, and things turning violent. DM
Nahar Net
19 hours ago
- Politics
- Nahar Net
Truckers' protests in Iran grow and win support from prominent dissidents
by Naharnet Newsdesk 29 May 2025, 12:48 Truck drivers in Iran blocked roads and ports Wednesday as part of their strike protesting low salaries, high insurance rates, and a possible hike in fuel prices. The strikes, which began last Thursday in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, one of the country's main transportation and shipping hubs, have now spread across Iran. The protests are slowly gaining steam, supported by prominent dissident voices, and could morph into more serious protests against the government. Last week, the Iranian government announced plans to increase the price of fuel for trucks from 4 cents per liter (15.14 cents per gallon) to nearly 50 cents per liter (about $1.90 per gallon) in late June. With massive resources of oil and gas, Iran has some of the lowest fuel prices in the world. The average price for a gallon of gas in the United States on Wednesday was $3.16, according to AAA, a drivers' assistance and advisory service. Dissident Iranians expressed their support for the truckers. Film director Jafar Panahi, who last week won the Palme d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival, encouraged the truck drivers to start a nationwide strike. "The strike is a loud cry to the government: enough is enough! Stop the massive suppression and plundering before everything is lost and nothing remains for people," he wrote on Instagram. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, who was imprisoned on charges of collusion against state security and propaganda against Iran's government, also expressed her support for the strike on X. Videos circulating on social media showed lines of trucks parked on the sides of major roads. Iran said the plan is intended to prevent fuel smuggling into neighboring countries. Fuel in neighboring Pakistan costs more than a dollar per liter ($4 per gallon). Many of Iran's previous rounds of anti-government protests started out as economic protests over local issues, including demonstrations in 2017 and 2018. Those protests were met with a heavy reaction by the police and the Basij, the all-volunteer force of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. In 2019, anger over the government eliminating the gasoline subsidy also sparked nation-wide protests. More than 1,000 people were arrested and the country temporarily shut down the internet. Protests also rocked the country in 2022 over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in Iranian security custody after morality police detained her for improperly wearing her headscarf, or hijab. On Saturday, Jalal Mousavi, an official in the truckers' union, said truckers are striking because they are struggling with the rising costs of fuel, spare parts and repairs. The strike underscores the mounting economic pressures on Iran as it struggles to secure relief from crippling sanctions in the ongoing negotiations with the United States. Iran's oil sector, the lifeblood of its economy, has been damaged by the impact of American sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program, and it is one of the central issues under discussion in the Iran-U.S. negotiations. On Wednesday, Fatemeh Mohajerani, the spokesperson of the government's Cabinet, said lawmakers had discussed the strike in the Cabinet meeting and the administration will consider the truckers' needs. State TV showed footage of routine activities in truck terminals and ports.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, the first Arab and African director to win Cannes Palme d'Or, dies aged 91
Algerian director Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, whose 1975 drama Chronique des Années de Braise (Chronicles of the Years of Fire) won Cannes' Palme d'Or in 1975, has died aged 91. He was the oldest living recipient of the Palme d'Or and Chronicles of the Years of Fire remains Africa's only Palme d'Or to this day. Lakhdar-Hamina's family said the producer and director died at his home in the Algerian capital of Algers on 23 May. Coincidently, the Cannes Film Festival screened Chronicles of the Years of Fire in its Cannes Classics program that day, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the film's Palme d'Or. Set between 1939 and 1954, the movie retells the Algerian War of Independence through the eyes of a peasant farmer, depicting the harshness of French colonial rule. Lakhdar-Hamina competed for the Palme d'Or four times, with The Winds of the Aures, which won the best first film prize in 1967, as well as Sandstorm (1982) and Last Image (1986). After a 30-year break, Lakhdar-Hamina directed Twilight of Shadows, which was Algeria's submission to the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 88th Academy Awards in 2016. Born on 26 February 1934 in M'Sila in the Aurès region of north-east Algeria, Hamina studied in the southern French town of Antibes. During the Algerian war, his father was tortured and killed by the French army. He was called up to the French army in 1958 but deserted to join the Algerian resistance in Tunis, where he did an internship with Tunisian news. He ran Algeria's news service, the l'Office des Actualités Algériennes (OAA) from shortly after the revolution to 1974. He was also head of the Algerian National Office for Commerce and the Film Industry between 1981 and 1984. French distributor Les Acacias Distribution will theatrically re-release Chronicles of the Years of Fire in cinemas in France on 6 August.
