Clio Barnard’s I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning won the People’s Choice award at Cannes Film Festival’s independent sidebar Directors’ Fortnight, which wraps today (May 21).
It stars Anthony Boyle, Joe Cole, Jay Lycurgo, Daryl McCormack and Lola Petticrew as a group of childhood friends on the cusp of their 30th birthdays who grew up in the same building complex and are forced to confront a life where their hopes and dreams haven’t materialised.
Tracy O’Riordan produces for Moonspun Films. Curzon distributes in the UK and Ireland. Irish playwright Enda Walsh wrote the script from Keiran Goddard’s novel. The film is Barnard’s fifth feature, after Ali & Ava played Directors’ Fortnight in 2021 and The Selfish Giant won the Europa Cinemas Label in 2013. Charades is handling international sales.
The People’s Choice award launched in 2024 and awards the winning filmmaker a €7,500 prize supported by the Fondation Chantal Akerman.
The Directors’ Fortnight selection is non-competitive in principle, but still awards a trio of prizes.
The SACD’s “coup de coeur” prize for best French feature in the selection went to Lila Pinell for Shana. The writer-director’s second feature and first solo effort stars Eva Huault as a young woman who inherits a ring from her late grandmother that is meant to protect her from bad luck, just as her toxic partner has been released from prison and her misfortunes are piling up. Veteran actress Noemie Lvovsky co-stars.
Shana is produced by Emmanuel Chaumet of France’s Ecce Films and Charles Gillibert for his CG Cinema. Losange Films is selling the film and the company’s local distribution arm Les Films du Losange will release the film in France. The prize was voted on by filmmakers Anne Villaceque, Catherine Corsini and Axelle Ropert.
Earlier today, the Europa Cinemas Label gave its top prize for best European film to Sarah Arnold’s debut feature Too Many Beasts (L’Espèce Explosive).
Directors’ Fortnight will close with Quentin Dupieux’s animation Vertiginous.
The Cannes Critics’ Week sidebar handed out its prizes on Wednesday; with the Official Selection awards to be distributed at the closing ceremony on Saturday.
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