Cannes 2017: The Critics Awards

Cannes (France, May 17-28, 2017). The FIPRESCI Jury awarded three prizes: two in the Official Selection – one for the Competition and one for “Un Certain Regard” –, and a third one for either “The Critics Week” or the “Directors Fortnight”.

Prize in the Official Selection / Competition:
“120 Beats Per Minute” (BPM – Beats Per Minute / 120 battements par minute)
by Robin Campillo (France, 2017, 140 min),
“A film about love. A film about life. Life stronger than death. A film as a glimpse of hope.”

Prize in the Official Selection / Un Certain Regard:
“Closeness” (Tesnota) by Kantemir Balagov (Russia, 2017, 118 min),
“A striking new voice provides an intimate portrait of a closed community. Complete cinema.”

Prize to a first or second film in the parallel sections, Directors’ Fortnight or La Semaine de la Critique:
“The Nothing Factory” (A fábrica de nada) by Pedro Pinho (Portugal, 2017, 177 min),
presented in the “Directors’ Fortnight”,
“An evocative activist film that blows the boundaries between reality, fiction, theater an sociological discourse leading to an unsettling and provocative cinematic experience.”

Jury members were:
Alissa Simon, USA, president; Thomas Aïdan, France; Rodrigo Fonseca, Brazil; Barbara Lorey de Lacharriere, France; Pierre Pageau, Canada; Eva Peydró, Spain; Silvana Silvestri, Italy; Mode Steinkjer, Norway; Vidyashankar Jois, India. Coordination: Pamela Biénzobas, France/Chile.

Festival: www.festival-cannes.org