Before the Palme d’Or will get dished out and after energy cuts took down the city’s electrical energy for a day, Cannes was abuzz with the burning query: qui a gagné le Palm Dog? The reply got here yesterday afternoon at a star-studded-collar occasion on the seashore at The Members Club. In a woof-and-ready ceremony, jury member Peter Bradshaw famous that 25 movies had come into account for this 12 months’s honors, declaring that some had been made by administrators who hadn’t even been born when the occasion first passed off on the UK Pavilion again in 2000.
• The prime prize — The Palm Dog itself — went to sheepdog Panda, for her half in a movie directed by her proprietor: The Love That Remains, Hlynur Pálmason’s tragicomic, mild household saga.
• Mutt Moment — for the 12 months’s greatest scene-stealer — went to the British Un Certain Regard movie Pillion for its long-haired Dachshund Hippo and Rottweiler Rosie.
• The Grand Jury prize went to the 2 canines in Oliver Laxe’s apocalyptic highway film Sirât.
• The inaugural Four-Legged Fellowship went to Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Amores Perros, screening in Cannes Classics.
Pillion director Harry Lighton was unable to attend, however despatched a message saying, “I’d like to thank the jury for recognizing the nuance, complexity and raw sex appeal in Hippo’s ‘performance. I hesitate to use that word. Hippo doesn’t perform, she inhabits, and while Harry and Alexander do solid work, it’s Hippo who carries the film on her little legs… This award is for every small dog out there with big dreams.”
Sad information got here from Sirât star Jade Oukid, who revealed that Pipa, the canine within the movie, was really her personal, and had handed away after the shoot. However, director Laxe kindly added that, due to the facility of cinema, Oukid’s canine had grow to be “eternal”.
And in a transfer so new that disorganizer Toby Rose forgot to say it on the Palm Dog press launch, this 12 months additionally noticed the inauguration of a model new award, The Four-Legged Fellowship. This went to the group behind Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Amores Perros (2000), which, just like the Palm Dog, celebrated 1 / 4 of a century on the pageant this 12 months and is about to get a shiny new re-release courtesy of Mubi.
Iñárritu was a bit too tied up, taking pictures Tom Cruise in London, to attend, however producer Martha Sosa despatched a message saying, “We are truly honoured to receive this recognition from the Palm Dog Awards, for the beloved canine stars of Amores Perros, who are sadly no longer with us. This year marks a significant double celebration: the 25th anniversary of your awards and 25 years since the premiere of Amores Perros at Cannes. A heartfelt thank you to the entire Palm Dog Awards team from all of us.”