Instead, the Palme d’Or on Sunday went to 79-year-old British filmmaker Ken Loach for “I, Daniel Blake”, the on-the-nose narrative of working-class folks getting the runaround from an unfeeling government welfare bureaucracy.
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Loach has had 12 films in competition at the Cannes Film Festival through his long career, including The Wind That Shakes The Barley, which took the Palme D’Or in 2006. The 27-year-old won the jury prize in 2014 for Mommy.
I, Daniel Blake, is set in the North East and follows the life of Blake, who was a joiner for most of his life, until a heart attack and near-fall from a scaffold, he needs state aid for the first time in his life.
Loach said he hopes the film makes people think about what he calls the “cruel” austerity program in England.
“After a testimony like tonight’s, what it tells us – the people on the team – is that the characters we drew for them and the story we told found its mark”, he said at a news conference.
This year’s other winners at Cannes include Canada’s Xavier Dolan for “It’s Only the End of the World” – a drama about a bickering family.
A FILM WITH an Irish cinematographer won the highest award last night at the Cannes Film Festival.
He was not the only British victor at Cannes – Andrea Arnold’s road movie American Honey, starring Shia LaBeouf, won the Prix du Jury (Jury Prize).
The Palme d’Or winning film I, Daniel Blake was screened after the ceremony as the closing film of the 69th Cannes Film Festival.
“I’m very happy to be here with people that I love and with whom we made a film that I’m very proud of, and that, for me, is my best film yet”.
In a piece title “How George Miller’s Jury Got It Wrong”, he offers the view that several other films deserved the prize more, including German director Maren Ade’s “Toni Erdmann”, Jim Jarmusch’s “Paterson” and Paul Verhoeven’s strong but controversial “Elle”.
The Camera d’Or, which honors the best first feature film, was awarded to Divines, a movie by Houda Benyamina.
Farhadi won The Best Screenplay Award, and his actor Shahab Hosseini won the Best Actor Award. “If you have no work, it’s your fault you haven’t got a job”.
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Philippine star Jaclyn Jose won best actress in Brillante Mendoza’s “Ma’ Rosa” as a mother selling drugs to survive who falls prey to corrupt police.
