Introducing the Palme d'Or Project
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
Well, this is it. The last super ambitious thing I will do on Films Fatale until I get to my top one hundred films of the 2020s (which thank goodness that won’t be for another number of years). It’s been fun to really deep dive into so many corridors of film history, but I’m also beyond exhausted. I’ve been going full throttle since 2019 with these kinds of projects. I think there are enough of these on Films Fatale. No coverage of every Best Actress Academy Award winner, or every Canadian Screen Award winner, or anything like that. I’m tired of being tired. I will still be covering many things film, but on a more civil level. This is just too much for me to do on a consistent basis. I can’t be writing five different things each day anymore. So, take this all in. I feel like this being the final major project for years will be quite worthwhile.
Viridiana.
So, what exactly is going on? If you’re familiar with Films Fatale, you’ll know that I’ve reviewed every single Best Picture winner at the Academy Awards, mainly because I have this affinity for the Academy, despite its major flaws. I’ve just tuned in to the Oscars for many years, and have made predictions for as long as I can remember. However, during this time, as I developed into an even bigger cinephile, I’ve also taken note of how strong Cannes Film Festival’s selections of the best film at each festival has been, mainly because these usually go on to be the best films of their years (and, often enough, the best films of all time). If I have every Best Picture winner on Films Fatale, it only made sense that I had to have every Palme d’Or winner on here as well. When I started this project, I had ascertained that the worst Best Picture winner I’ve ever seen is absolutely atrocious, while the worst Palme d’Or winner (again, when I started this project; I had seen just over half of the winners before starting) was decent; while the latter is no longer true, the overall quality of every Palme d’Or winner is astronomically higher, usually because Cannes is really good at selecting great films.
All That Jazz.
Like the Best Picture project, a lot of history has affected the Palme d’Or and its many winners, perhaps even more than the Academy Awards (consider how many times Cannes has been cancelled; this alone is important to note). We will be having a taste of what the world was going through with each win, as well as analyses of the artistic and technical achievements of each selection. I will be covering ties as well, with each winner getting its own day. However, I will make a bit of a clarification, since there have been many shifts throughout Cannes’ history. I am starting with Marty, when the first official award titled “Palme d’Or” was handed out; I will be doing a brief article on the original Grand Prix winners before Marty. Just to over complicate things (sorry), I will be covering the films that won the Grand Prix when the title reverted back to this, because the sentiment was basically the same during this time. The original Grand Prix winners are trickier, especially when you have an instance where over ten films won one year (!), so I want to proceed with when the festival was a little steadier with how it wanted to proceed with its awards.
Kagemusha.
What does this mean? One Palme d’Or winner a day. Any column I run will be temporarily on hold for the next little while until this is done (another reason why I don’t want to do more massive projects like this:I want to get back into the swing of my numerous columns). Any columns written by other Films Fatale team members will continue. Any podcast releases will continue. Just expect a lot of Palme d’Or talk to come. There will be a little section for these reviews on the site, so each winner will find its way into it every year. That’s about it. We get started with our Grand Prix write up tomorrow, and Marty on Monday!
And the winner is…
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.