分类： entertainment

The 79th Cannes Film Festival, one of the most prestigious annual gatherings in global cinema, is set to conclude this Saturday with the coveted Palme d’Or award ceremony, the crowning honor of the international film calendar. This year, however, the race for the top prize has defied conventional expectations, with no clear favorite emerging from the 22 competing features – a dynamic that has left pundits and audiences guessing heading into the closing event.

By widespread critical consensus, the 2025 edition of Cannes has not been considered among the festival’s standout years. Major Hollywood studios and A-list productions largely skipped this year’s lineup, draining some of the red carpet glitz and mainstream media buzz that typically surrounds the French Riviera event. Many of the officially selected competition titles also failed to deliver knockout reviews from attending critics, with the global cultural conversation that Cannes usually fuels far more muted than in past editions.

Yet this lack of a consensus front-runner has opened up unprecedented flexibility for the nine-member jury, led by acclaimed South Korean director Park Chan-wook, who won the Palme d’Or himself in 2022 for *Decision to Leave*. A Palme d’Or victory is career-changing for any filmmaker: it instantly catapults a film’s global profile, brings major distribution offers across international markets, and often positions the winning work as an early contender for Academy Award recognition.

Heading into the final days, several titles have risen to the top of critics’ prediction lists. These include Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski’s *Fatherland*, a black-and-white meditation on the intertwined fates of art and politics in post-World War II Europe; Japanese auteur Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s *All of a Sudden*, a sprawling three-hour tender drama centered on elder care; Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev’s *Minotaur*, a gritty take on crime and moral reckoning in modern Russia; and Romanian director Cristian Mungiu’s *Fjord*, a tense thriller set in Norway that explores the failures of the country’s child welfare system.

In a late twist on the festival’s penultimate day, a surprising dark horse candidate surged into contention. *The Black Ball*, directed by Spanish duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, earned one of the most enthusiastic audience receptions of the entire 12-day event. The sweeping multi-generational drama follows the interconnected lives of three gay men from different eras, resonating deeply with viewers and emerging as a surprise fan favorite.

Predicting the Palme d’Or has always been notoriously difficult, even when a clear favorite exists. Jury deliberations are held entirely behind closed doors, and any of the 22 competing films are eligible to take home the top honor. This year’s jury also boasts a diverse roster of global talent, including Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao, actress Demi Moore and Swedish star Stellan Skarsgård, making their collective decision even harder to forecast.

In the lead-up to Saturday’s ceremony, winning contenders are notified that they will receive an award but are not told which honor they will take home. In addition to the Palme d’Or, the jury will hand out awards for best actress, best actor, the Grand Prix, and other secondary honors, with standard festival practice dictating that only one award is granted per film.

This year, one of the most remarkable streaks in modern cinema is also on the line: American independent distribution label Neon has backed the last six consecutive Palme d’Or winners. The streak includes 2024’s *Anora*, which went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture earlier this year, and 2025’s winner Jafar Panahi’s *It Was Just an Accident*. Whether the distribution company can extend its unprecedented run remains to be seen.

The closing ceremony will also proceed with one notable absence. Legendary entertainer Barbra Streisand was originally scheduled to attend to receive an honorary Palme d’Or for her lifetime contribution to cinema, but a knee injury forced her to cancel her trip. Festival organizers have confirmed they will still proceed with the tribute to Streisand in her absence.

Stunning new timelapse footage has captured the extraordinary transformation of one of Paris’s most historic bridges, as renowned street artist JR — often nicknamed the “French Banksy” for his subversive, large-scale public works — completed a breathtaking temporary installation that has captured the attention of art lovers across the globe.

The project, which reimagined the bridge’s iconic facade as a giant, inflating cave-like structure, unfolded over a period of careful preparation and construction. The timelapse sequence documents every stage of the work, from the initial anchoring of the massive flexible membrane to the gradual inflation that turned the solid stone bridge’s surface into a bulging, organic-looking form that seems to bulge out into the city space above the Seine.

JR, who built his career on provocative, site-specific public art that challenges how viewers interact with urban landscapes, has a long history of creating works that blur the line between art, architecture, and public space. This installation continues that tradition, turning a familiar Parisian landmark into something unexpected that forces passersby and visitors to reexamine the built environment they encounter every day.

Footage of the installation’s inflation has spread rapidly across social media, with thousands of users sharing the striking visual of the “giant cave” swelling against the backdrop of the Paris skyline. The temporary nature of the work — typical of JR’s public practice — means that only those who visited the site in person and those viewing the timelapse footage online can experience the full impact of the piece, adding an additional layer of exclusivity and urgency to its cultural conversation.

Critics and art observers have noted that the work continues JR’s signature style of taking well-known public spaces and injecting them with new meaning, using large-scale visual trickery to spark dialogue about art’s role in everyday life. Like the anonymous British street artist Banksy, JR works primarily in public space, avoiding traditional gallery settings to bring his art directly to the public, a practice that has earned him a global following and widespread critical acclaim.

A high-profile post-filming celebration attended by Rolling Stones frontman Sir Mick Jagger has been cut short by Italian law enforcement, after local officials enforced a longstanding rule prohibiting public music events on Wednesdays. The gathering marked the completion of principal photography for the upcoming feature film *Three Incestuous Sisters*, a star-studded project directed by award-nominated Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher, which has been filming on the tiny volcanic island of Stromboli, located off the northern coast of Sicily.

According to multiple Italian media reports, the event brought together Jagger, who has a key role in the film, and A-list cast members including Dakota Johnson, Jessie Buckley, Saoirse Ronan, and Josh O’Connor. The celebration was held at a local venue to honor the cast and crew’s months of work on location, when officers from Italy’s Carabinieri police force arrived to end the event. Local outlets note that music was played at a moderate volume through just one small speaker, yet the enforcement action still went ahead.

Reaction to the shutdown has sparked local political friction, with tourism leaders criticizing the move as unnecessarily harsh. Rosa Oliva, head of Stromboli’s local tourism office, labeled the police action an overreaching “punitive intervention” that harms the island’s already struggling hospitality sector. In comments to Italian news agency Ansa, Oliva argued that the film production represents a major economic boost for the small island, which has faced severe tourism declines and neglect over the past winter. She pointed out that instead of penalizing the gathering, local leaders should have welcomed the high-profile production that puts Stromboli back on the global travel map. “One would have expected a welcome to the guests, or at least a greeting and a thank you for their crucial contribution” to the local economy, Oliva said, referencing Riccardo Gullo, the mayor of Lipari, the administrative seat that governs Stromboli and the rest of the Aeolian Islands. Gullo’s administration introduced the Wednesday music ban that led to the shutdown, and the BBC has confirmed it has reached out to the mayor for comment on the incident. Guests at the party reportedly reacted to the police order with a mix of confusion and amusement, before complying with the request to end the music.

Beyond the viral party incident, *Three Incestuous Sisters* carries deep personal and cultural ties to Stromboli. Adapted from an American graphic novel of the same name, the film follows the quiet lives of three sisters whose isolated routine is upended by the arrival of a lighthouse keeper and his son. Jagger is set to play the lighthouse keeper, while O’Connor – best known for his lead roles in *The Crown* and *Challengers* – will portray his son. The cast also includes celebrated Italian-American actress Isabella Rossellini, whose connection to the island stretches back three-quarters of a century. In 1949, Rossellini’s parents – legendary director Roberto Rossellini and screen icon Ingrid Bergman – fell in love while filming the 1950 classic *Stromboli* on the very same island. Rossellini has previously shared on social media photos from her trip to Stromboli’s famous active volcano, noting she is working on the project “where my parents […] fell in love in 1949.” Rohrwacher, the film’s director, earned one of the film industry’s highest honors when she was nominated for the Palme d’Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, cementing *Three Incestuous Sisters* as one of the most anticipated upcoming releases in international cinema.