From Palme d’Or to Un Certain Regard, what the Cannes Film Festival’s Award categories mean

Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) student Chidananda S Naik bagged the first prize in the La Cinef section for ‘Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know’, a 15-minute short film based on a Kannada folklore. India-born Mansi Maheshwari’s ‘Bunnyhood’, an animated film, bagged the third prize.

Cinematographer Santosh Sivan became the first Asian to be awarded the Pierre Angénieux Tribute Award, with recognition for his “career and exceptional quality of work”. Additionally, Anasuya Sengupta became the first Indian to win the Best Actress prize in ‘The Shameless’ in the Un Certain Regard category.

What exactly are these categories, and how has India fared at Cannes in the past? We explain.

What is the Palme d’Or and the Grand Prix?

Several screenings are held at Cannes during the festival and a range of awards, ranging from the competitive to the honourary, are given out. But the two biggest awards at the Cannes Film Festival are the Palme d’Or (French for ‘The Golden Palm’) and the Grand Prix (meaning ‘Grand Prize’).

No film can win any other award apart from the Palme d’Or, such as those for Best Actor or Best Screenplay, since it is considered the pinnacle of prizes across categories.

While the film festival began in 1946, the Palme d’Or award only came about in 1955. The festival’s board of directors invited several jewellers to submit designs for a Palme or Palm leaf trophy as a “tribute” to the coat of arms of the city of Cannes, located on the French Riviera.

The award was paused and only given again from 1975 onwards to the director of the Best Feature Film of the Official Competition. The only time actors have been awarded alongside the director was in 2013, when director Abdellatif Kechiche and actresses Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux won for ‘Blue is the Warmest Color’.

In the past, films such as ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘Parasite’ have received the prize. From India, directors Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Shaji N. Karun and Payal Kapadia have been nominated. No Indian director has won the Palme d’Or to date.

The festival festival board selects the jury for giving the awards annually. This year, it was chaired by American director Greta Gerwig and included Turkish screenwriter and photographer Ebru Ceylan, American actress Lily Gladstone and French actor and producer Omar Sy, among others.

Indian jury members in previous editions have included actresses Deepika Padukone, Aishwarya Rai, Vidya Balan and Sharmila Tagore. Directors Mira Nair and Shekhar Kapur have also been on the panels.

The Grand Prix is the second-highest award in the main competition of the festival.

What does Un Certain Regard at Cannes mean?

Introduced in 1978, Un Certain Regard (meaning ‘a certain glance’) is a section of the festival’s official selection. It has its own jury and is meant to award young talent and “encourage innovative and audacious works”, according to the website, by presenting one of the films with a grant to aid its distribution in France.

Other awards also exist in the category, such as for Best Performance, for Ensemble Cast, etc. From India, the Bollywood film Masaan won the Un Certain Regard for Prix Avenir Prometteur (‘Promising future’), before Anasuya Sengupta’s Best Actress win this year.

And what is the La Cinef Prize?

It is an official section of the festival aimed at encouraging new talents and recognises films from film schools across the world, according to a PIB release. The Cannes website states it has a separate jury.

This year, “The selection included 18 films by film students chosen from 2,263 candidates from 555 film schools around the world.”