Cannes 2021 Betting Thread

[Silga]

Nuri Bilge Ceylan's new film is my most anticipated.

Also excited for many others, esp. Nanni Moretti, Marco Bellocchio, Jonathan Glazer, Hirokazu Kore-eda.

[St. Gloede]

I'm most excited about the new Rohrwacher film, took her long enough. Asteroid City looks like lesser WA, but it is still high on my list anticipated of the year.

Interested in essentially everything in competition, and also really excited for Funny Wars premiering along with a special honouring of JLG.

[nrh]

it's great to see justine triet in the competition, a very interesting director who i'm not sure gets enough attention (sibyl was in competition and played nyff but still feels a little overlooked, her older work only more so).

truly bizarre that there are multiple wenders movies playing at a festival in 2023...

[Curtis, baby]

Kaurismäki new film best news.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[flip]

Cannes 2023 starts next week (May 16), so time for our annual Cannes betting contest! The in-competition lineup features several once-popular directors I had almost forgotten about -- Tran Anh Hung, Catherine Breillat, Wim Wenders, Aki Kaurismaki -- with four past Palme d'Or winners (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Ken Loach, Nanni Moretti who won more than 20 years ago, Wim Wenders who won almost 40 years ago), and a further two past Grand Prix winners (Alice Rohrwacher, Aki Kaurismaki who won nearly 30 years ago). And Marco Bellocchio is in competition for, by my count, the 8th time -- maybe he'll finally win something this year.

Here's the lineup, followed by the rules for anyone who wants to place a (free) bet:

Cannes 2023 In Competition

About Dry Grasses (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)
Asteroid City (Wes Anderson)
Banel and Adama (Ramata-Toulaye Sy)
Black Flies (Jean-Stephane Sauvaire)
A Brighter Tomorrow (Nanni Moretti)
La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher)
Club Zero (Jessica Hausner)
Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismaki)
Firebrand (Karim Ainouz)
Four Daughters (Kaouther Ben Hania)
Homecoming (Catherine Corsini)
Kidnapped (Marco Bellocchio)
Last Summer (Catherine Breillat)
May December (Todd Haynes)
Monster (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
The Old Oak (Ken Loach)
Perfect Days (Wim Wenders)
The Pot-au-Feu (Tran Anh Hung)
Youth (Spring) (Wang Bing)
The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)

To participate, just pick the films you think will win the Palme d'Or, the Grand Jury Prize, the Jury Prize, and the Best Director Prize, and pick one Alternate film for potential extra points. Ballots must be in by the time Cannes starts on May 16 (that's Tuesday next week!), so voters don't have the benefit of seeing Cannes film reviews before voting.

Scoring - using a system that rewards picking multiple award winners correctly over picking one particular award correctly:

If your pick for the Palme or GJP wins one of the four awards: 5 points each
If your pick for the JP or Director award wins one of the four awards: 4 points each
If your Alternate pick wins one of the four awards: 3 points
If you pick the Palme correctly: 3 additional points
If you pick the GJP correctly: 2 additional points
If you pick the JP or Director correctly: 1 additional point each

If an award is given ex-aequo, I'll still award full points if you picked one of the two tied films.

Prize:
- glory! and the winner will have the option to decide on a poll we can run (that i'll tabulate), from one of our normal categories (director, established film genre, country/region)

Deadline: May 16

[flip]

after watching a few trailers and reading about a few films, i'm predicting it will be an especially weak year. i'll probably be completely wrong but i'll bet the old guard don't win much this time:

Palme d'Or: Club Zero (Jessica Hausner)
Grand Prix: The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)
Jury Prize: La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher)
Director: About Dry Grasses (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
Alternate: Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)

[flip]

cannes starts today, so if anyone wants to join me trying to guess the awards, now's the time to post a ballot!

[nrh]

Palme d'Or: La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher)
Grand Prix: Youth (Spring) (Wang Bing)
Jury Prize: Club Zero (Jessica Hausner)
Director: Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismaki)

really just taking wild guesses here. feels like the only movie i've seen hype for is the kaurismaki? i guess the wes anderson but a lot of that is the normal studio marketing push that goes along with his movies.

and a lot of projects where it is just hard to know what to expect (jonathan glazer doing a martin amis holocaust novel? breillat in erotic drama territory and it's a remake?)...

[Silga]

Palme d'Or: Four Daughters (Kaouther Ben Hania)
Grand Prix: About Dry Grasses (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
Jury Prize: The Pot-au-Feu (Tran Anh Hung)
Director: May December (Todd Haynes)
Alternate: The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)

[flip]

i'm happy to see some other participants! i realized the first competition film doesn't screen until tomorrow, so if anyone else wants to join, there's still about a day to get a ballot in.

and i imagine no one cares much about the competition and rules, but if you want to, nrh, you can post an alternate film for possible extra points

[flip]

as usual, i'll include the guardian ratings for each competition film. i use the guardian only because i have easy access to it, and they seem to review everything, but i don't look at their reviews otherwise, so i have no idea what perspective they generally take on film. on opening day, it seems they liked the kore-eda, disliked the corsini:

Kidnapped (Marco Bellocchio) •••••
La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher) •••••
Youth (Wang Bing) ••••
About Dry Grasses (Nuri Bilge Ceylan) ••••
Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismaki) ••••
The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer) ••••
The Old Oak (Ken Loach) ••••
Asteroid City (Wes Anderson) ••••
Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet) ••••
May December (Todd Haynes) ••••
Monster (Hirokazu Kore-eda) ••••
Four Daughters (Kaouther Ben Hania) •••
Perfect Days (Wim Wenders) •••
Firebrand (Karim Ainouz) •••
Banel and Adama (Ramata-Toulaye Sy) •••
The Pot-au-Feu (Tran Anh Hung) •••
Last Summer (Catherine Breillat) ••
Club Zero (Jessica Hausner) ••
Homecoming (Catherine Corsini) ••
Black Flies (Jean-Stephane Sauvaire) ••
A Brighter Tomorrow (Nanni Moretti) •

edit: updating as new reviews come in

[flip]

just past the halfway point of the competition, and the guardian has given just over half of the films a 4-star review, so i guess it's a strong year in their eyes.

on the screen daily jury grid, which isn't updated with the most recent two screenings (the justine triet and karim ainouz films), the new todd haynes film is in first place, leading the nuri bilge ceylan and wang bing (tied) slightly. those are the clear top three.

by letterboxd ratings, though, the zone of interest, the jonathan glazer-directed martin amis adaptation, is slightly ahead of the hirokazu kore-eda and nuri bilge ceylan films. i think martin amis died the day after the zone of interest premiered. it seems that film, and the todd haynes film, are the early favourites.

the new aki kaurismaki and jessica hausner films screen today.

[flip]

maybe i was right that marco bellocchio would finally win his first cannes prize on his eighth try -- his kidnapped is the first competition film to get a 5-star review from the guardian

[flip]

and a day after the guardian gives a veteran italian director the first 5-star review of the cannes competition, it gives a veteran italian director its first 1-star review. they describe nanni moretti's a brighter tomorrow as "bafflingly awful" (is it really all that baffling though?)

[flip]

fallen leaves, the aki kaurismaki film, now tops the screen daily jury grid. the justine triet and todd haynes films are tied for second place.

kidnapped, the marco bellocchio film, is the only 5-star reviewed film by the guardian so far

the zone of interest, the jonathan glazer adaptation of martin amis, is the highest rated of the films on letterboxd, followed closely by the hirozau kore-eda, nuri bilge ceylan, and justine triet films. interestingly, the nanni moretti film is next, despite the 1-star guardian review, while the bellocchio is one of the lower-rated films on letterboxd, despite the 5-star guardian review

i take from this that there is really no consensus around what should win this year

there are four films left to premiere, all by well-known directors -- today the wim wenders and catherine breillat films will screen, and tomorrow there will be the ken loach and alice rohrwacher films

[flip]

the guardian reviews are all in, and they gave out a second 5-star review, to the alice rohrwacher film la chimera

so if the guardian were giving out the top two prizes, they'd give them to:

Kidnapped (Marco Bellocchio)
La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher)

(with a lot of films tied for third place)

if letterboxd was giving out the top three prizes, going by user ratings, they'd give them to:

The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)
Perfect Days (Wim Wenders)
Monster (Hirokazu Kore-eda)

and if the screen daily jury grid was deciding the top three awards, they'd give them to

Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismaki)
Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)
May December (Todd Haynes)

though jury grid ratings for the loach and rohrwacher films aren't in yet.

there is no overlap among the top films from those three sources, so it seems to be a wide open race. awards announced tomorrow

[flip]

the awards were just announced:

Palme d'Or: Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)
Grand Prix: The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)
Jury Prize: Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismaki)
Director: The Pot-au-Feu (Tran Anh Hung)

it turns out the guardian favourites didn't win anything, and the jury grid predicted things well, letterboxd half-well.

i've tallied the scfz competition too -- turns out i won, because i got lucky picking the right prize for the zone of interest. the results (though nrh was at a disadvantage without an alternate)

flip - 10 pts
silga - 7 pts
nrh - 4 pts

so i will give myself a prize!

[nrh]

happy for triet! was hoping she'd win based on the strength of her earlier work but didn't think she'd have a chance.

tran anh hung comeback is not something i'd have guessed in a million years - his last three movies were either panned or mocked outright, and those early movies certainly haven't aged well (although i guess there's always going to be an audience for that sort of thing).

[St. Gloede]

Never heard of Triet before and her films do not have that high ratings on IMDb. What would you recommend.

This edition of Cannes seems to have had a more exciting mix than most years, can't wait to dive into these.

[flip]

i try not to read much about films before i see them, but i'm really looking forward to the triet, i gather it's at least partly a courtroom thriller or something in that orbit, and i watch films like that even if they're bad (and this film sounds like it's good). also curious to get triet recommendations, was thinking of watching films by hausner, rohrwacher and triet soon, because i haven't seen any, but i see their names a lot.

and i've seen one tran anh hung film that he's made in the 2000s, i come with the rain, and it was one of the most repulsive films i've ever seen. i did like cyclo a lot, but i saw that many years ago, before i'd really seen much. not sure what i'd make of it today, and not sure i'll watch the new film, but it sounds like a departure for him.

[Silga]

From Jessica Hausner i can recommend Amour Fou (2014) and Lourdes (2009). Both worthwhile films.

[nrh]

triet really came on most people's radar with siby, very odd film, definitely divisive but the people who liked it really liked. big swerves between comedy and very uncomfortable emotions, great performances from all the leads. and her first feature age of panic got a lot of attention in some circles (i think it was in the cahiers top ten for that year) but still seems somewhat obscure. haven't seen the one in between, in bed with victoria, but with that cast i imagine it is definitely worth checking out.

[flip]

Cannes 2024 starts next week (May 14), so time for our annual Cannes betting contest! The in-competition lineup is intriguing -- it includes the long-awaited Megalopolis (Coppola), a new film by Jacques Audiard who I had forgotten existed (but who has won both the Grand Prix and the Palme d'Or in the past), a new film by Michel Hazanavicius, who has never won anything at Cannes but is the perhaps surprising answer to the trivia question "who is the only French director to ever make a Best Picture winning film?", new films by Miguel Gomes, Mohammad Rasoulof, and Sean Baker, directors I know some SCFZers like quite a lot, along with several familiar names (Andrea Arnold, Yorgos Lanthimos, Paolo Sorrentino, Jia Zhangke, Paul Schrader) and a few directors I've never heard of -- though one of them, Payal Kapadia, made the first Indian film to screen in the Cannes Competition in thirty years (the last was Swaham (Shaji Karun, 1994)), a sort of astonishing fact.

Only Jacques Audiard and Francis Ford Coppola have previously won a Palme d'Or, but Andrea Arnold has won the Jury Prize an incredible three times, Paolo Sorrentino and Yorgos Lanthimos have won it once, and David Cronenberg has won a Special Jury Prize.

Here's the lineup, followed by the rules for anyone who wants to place a (free) bet:

____________________________________________


Cannes 2024 Films In Competition

All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia)
Anora (Sean Baker)
The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi)
Beating Hearts (Gilles Lellouche)
Bird (Andrea Arnold)
Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhangke)
Emilia Perez (Jacques Audiard)
The Girl with the Needle (Magnus von Horn)
Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes)
Kinds of Kindness (Yorgos Lanthimos)
Limonov: The Ballad (Kirill Serebrennikov)
Marcello Mio (Christophe Honore)
Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola)
The Most Precious of Cargoes (Michel Hazanavicius)
Motel Destino (Karim Ainouz)
Oh, Canada (Paul Schrader)
Parthenope (Paolo Sorrentino)
The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof)
The Shrouds (David Cronenberg)
The Substance (Coralie Fargeat)
Three Kilometres to the End of the World (Emanuel Parvu)
Wild Diamond (Agathe Riedinger)

____________________________________________


To participate, just pick the films you think will win the Palme d'Or, the Grand Jury Prize, the Jury Prize, and the Best Director Prize, and pick one Alternate film for potential extra points. Ballots must be in by the time Cannes starts on May 14 (that's one week from this Tuesday), so voters don't have the benefit of seeing Cannes film reviews before voting.

Scoring - using a system that rewards picking multiple award winners correctly over picking one particular award correctly:

If your pick for the Palme or GJP wins one of the four awards: 5 points each
If your pick for the JP or Director award wins one of the four awards: 4 points each
If your Alternate pick wins one of the four awards: 3 points
If you pick the Palme correctly: 3 additional points
If you pick the GJP correctly: 2 additional points
If you pick the JP or Director correctly: 1 additional point each

If an award is given ex-aequo, I'll still award full points if you picked one of the two tied films.

Prize:
- glory! and the winner will have the option to decide on a poll we can run (that i'll tabulate), from one of our normal categories (director, established film genre, country/region)

Deadline: May 16

[flip]

i feel like this isn't a very adventurous slate of predictions, but these are my picks:

Palme d'Or: Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes)
Grand Jury Prize: Parthenope (Paolo Sorrentino)
Jury Prize: All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia)
Director: The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof)
Alternate: Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola)

[Curtis, baby]

i'll see your unadventurous slate of predictions and raise you the palme going to the andrea arnold movie with saltburn guy

Palme d'Or: Bird (Andrea Arnold)
Grand Jury Prize: The Seed and the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof)
Jury Prize: All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia)
Director: Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhangke)
Alternate: The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi)

[ofrene]

Palme d'Or : Bird (Andrea Arnold)
Grand Jury Prize : The Seed and the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof)
Jury Prize : Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes)
Director : Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola)
Alternate : All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia)

[flip]

this could be a close contest, given that we all almost agree on what is like to win! hopefully some contrarian ballots also come in

one note, entirely my fault -- the title of the rasoulof film is the seed of the sacred fig (i got it wrong when i first posted the list of nominees)

[flip]

reminder that cannes starts on tuesday, so just a couple of days left to post predictions!

[flip]

there is still time! actually the first competition film won't screen until tomorrow (wednesday), and it will end at 17h43 france time, roughly noon eastern time, so that will be the deadline to submit a slate of predictions.

would be more fun to have two or three more participants, it only takes a minute, and it doesn't matter who wins, so i hope a couple more people will join in!

[Silga]

Palme d'Or: All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia)
Grand Jury Prize: Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhangke)
Jury Prize: Three Kilometres to the End of the World (Emanuel Parvu)
Director: Marcello Mio (Christophe Honore)
Alternate: The Seed and the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof)