What was behind the final decision
During the press conference which took place on Sunday afternoon, the jury of this 58th Cannes Film Festival confirmed the rumours according to which this year’s hotly-debated results represented a compromise between the strongly-opinionated members of the jury. President Emir Kusturica admitted to have enjoyed Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers ; he also envisaged granting a common prize to all three actresses of Gitaï’s Free Zone. The French director Agnès Varda said she was one of the supporters of the Dardenne brothers’ film and of Michael Haneke’s. Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison agreed with Salma Hayek about The Three Burials…, which was their favourite work. Here are some of the things the jury said :
Emir Kusturica: ‘The jury tried to choose the film which represented the best synthesis between all the aspects of cinema, an artistic work also interesting to the wide-public. 5 to 7 of the films selected were quality movies. 4 or 5 of them could very well have won the Golden Palm. However, this year, the general level was not so high ; most of the films were not as good as I expected. By elimination, we ended up selecting three films as likely to win the Golden Palm. The Child was a good compromise, for this film combines all the essential features of a good drama ; it really makes the most of all its elements. Thus, it corresponded to what we decided in the beginning, that is, we wanted a cinematic language consistent with the content of the film, which was not the case with David Cronenberg’s movie, for instance —it did not fit its genre.’
Agnès Varda: ‘Each one of us had a favourite film, so we had to find a compromise. However, our choice for the Golden Palm was not meant to help a film, for neither the Dardenne brothers, nor Jim Jarmusch, nor Michael Haneke really needed this kind of help.’
Toni Morrison: ‘The Three Burials… is a morality film where revenge turns into a form of justice, a film of formation. The jury was very opinionated and each point of view had much to recommend it.’
(Translated from French)
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