The Seed Of The Sacred Fig

Source: Cannes

‘The Seed Of The Sacred Fig’

The Seed Of The Sacred Fig from Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof has swooped to a late victory on Screen’s 2024 Cannes jury grid with an average score of 3.4.

See the final jury grid below.

Final jury grid 2024

The Seed Of The Sacred Fig and Michel Hazanavicius’ The Most Precious Of Cargoes were the final two titles to land on the grid, with the latter scoring 1.2, the lowest score this year.

Rasoulof attended last night’s (May 24) Cannes premiere after fleeing his country following an eight-year prison sentence from Iranian authorities. The family drama follows a judge in Tehran’s Revolutionary Court grappling with mistrust and paranoia that leads to suspicion of his own wife and daughters. It is Rasoulof’s first appearance in Competition, having won prizes in Un Certain Regard with three of his earlier features.

The film scored five four stars (excellent), plus seven threes (good) from our critics.

It means previous joint leaders, Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light and Sean Baker’s Anora which both scored 3.3, have to settle for joint second place.

Hazanavicius is in Competition for the fourth time with animated feature The Most Precious Of Cargoes, which is adapted from Jean-Claude Grumberg’s Second World War novel of the same name.

It received mostly negative scores, including three zeroes (bad) and six one stars (poor) but also collected a pair of threes. These were not enough though to stop the film landing bottom of the grid with 1.2, below Gilles Lellouche’s Beating Hearts on 1.3 and Christophe Honore’s Marcello Mio on 1.4.

Sacred Fig’s final score of 3.4 was slightly higher than last year’s leader, Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves, which topped the grid with a 3.2 and was the only title to average higher than three in 2023. This year four titles averaged three or above.