Over the weekend, the 68th annual Cannes Film Festival wrapped up (not without a certain amount of red carpet controversy), rounding out a worldly set of winners with Dheepan, this year’s Palme d’Or recipient.
Selected by a jury led by the Coen brothers, the French drama follows three Sri Lankan refugees attempting to make a new life for themselves in Paris by posing as a family. The film, co-written and directed by Jacques Audiard (Rust and Bone, A Prophet), stars three amateur actors, most notably Jesuthasan Antonythasan, a writer and activist who himself was a former child soldier in Sri Lanka seeking asylum in France, much the same as the titular character of Dheepan. Seems just a tad bit different from Mad Max: Fury Road and Irrational Man, which were both screened out of competition at the festival.
Having beat out a formidable group of final nominees that included Todd Haynes’s Carol, Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario, and Gus Van Sant’s The Sea of Trees, Audiard noted that, “To receive a prize from the Coen brothers is something pretty exceptional. I’m very touched.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfhMMDiRvzo
Dheepan is set for a future, unspecified US release with Sundance Selects.
