Festival de Cannes - Palm d'Or for Sean Baker, the revival
of independent American cinema and other trends of the 77th
edition
"This film is magnificent, full of humanity (...) It broke our hearts with all of us," said the president of the jury, American filmmaker Greta Gerwig on May 25 before presenting the ultimate prize to Sean Baker.
"Anora" is the 8th film in the career of the American filmmaker.
Sean Baker, the last truly independent "indie" director of the United States, director of "Tangerine," "The Florida Project" and "Red Rocket," an empathetic explorer of American society, a compassionate observer of marginalized people, won the coveted Palme d'Or that he dedicates to all sex workers.
This victory is dedicated to "all sex workers in the past, present and future" Sean Baker commented!
A festival where nudity, even up frontal can be found everywhere. In "The Substance", a body horror film signed by Coralie Fargeat, rewarded on 25.05 on the occasion of the awards for best screenplay, and Demi Moore, one of the main actresses, would have deserved the trophy for best artistic performance.
That dedication of Sean Baker may amaze, but it can be interpreted as a kind of branding of this 77th edition of the festival, because most films explore sexuality. On the surface, because it's really about fighting against stigmatisation, it's about dignity.
Be it transgender as in Jacques Audiard's film "Emilia Perez" with an impressive performance by the four actresses Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldana, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz, rewarded in the ensemble with the award for best female performance. 4 award-winning actresses is with a novum for Cannes, another even more important fact is that for the first time in the history of the festival a transgender woman is rewarded with this prestigious trophy: the Spanish actress Karla Sofía Gascón!
Be it exploratory as in the film "Kinds of kindness" composed of three stories, independent of each other, in the first of them with the exchange of sex partners. American actor Jesse Plemons was rewarded with the trophy for best male performance in this absurd comedy directed by Yorgos Lanthimos.
But going back to the Palme d'Or winner, Sean Baker's new film titled "Anora," named after the film's protagonist artistic name is a feminist comedy that presents not only the lifestyle of Brooklyn where the action takes place, but also the diverse communities that populate this multiethnic neighborhood.
"Anora" is a film that encompasses two cultures, the Russian and the American, I was reading somewhere. Incorrectly, the film actually explores three cultures. Armenian is joined, Armenian is spoken, and Armenian traditions are even shown in a scene that takes place in an Armenian church. Two of the gangsters are Armenians, their mission is to remove Ani, and annul her marriage to Vanya.
No wonder the Armenian side is included in the film, the idea of placing the action within the Russian/Armenian community in Brooklyn started with actor Karren Karagulian already in 2009. In the film, Karren plays Torros, one of the Russian oligarch's men. Karagulian and Baker are friends, they collaborated on "Starlet" in 2012, "Tangerine" in 2015 and "Red rocket" in 2021! Baker developed the idea, wrote the script. At the award ceremony, Sean de altf
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