Belgian Festival at Cannes
Historic! With three Belgian films in competition, Belgium won three prizes at the closing ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival: Special 75th Anniversary Prize, Grand Prix and Jury Prize!
With actress Virginie Efira as Mistress of Ceremonies, this closing of the 75th Cannes Film Festival took on distinctly Belgian accents, from both the north and the south of the country, during the award ceremony. No country in the world has had such an honour on La Croisette!
The Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix was awarded to Close by Lukas Dhont. This story of two 13-year-old friends separated by a troubling event has won over large numbers of cinema-goers. Many felt that the 31-year-old Ghent director's film deserved the Palme d'Or, which was surprisingly (and somewhat incomprehensibly) awarded to Sweden's Ruben Östlund for Triangle of Sadness. Young Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont had already won a Caméra d'or for Girl four years earlier.
The Jury Prize was awarded to Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch for Les huit montagnes (The Eight Mountains), a co-production between Italy and Belgium. This pair of directors, a couple in life as well as in films, talks about the links between two friends living in very different worlds.
Finally, a special prize to celebrate the Festival's 75th anniversary was awarded to the Dardenne brothers. Tori et Lokita (Tori and Lokita), their ninth film in competition, tells the story of two young people who choose to illegally immigrate to Belgium.
The traditional Cannes Film Festival red carpet had beautiful hints of black, yellow and red this year.