Cannes 2017: The Square wins the Palme d’Or

The Square, Ruben Östlund’s cutting satire of the world of modern art, has won one of the most prestigious prizes in contemporary culture: the Palme d’Or.

Östlund’s film stars the Danish actor Claes Bang as a gallery director who organises a performance art piece called The Square. Members of the public are invited to enter the space and told to behave responsibly. But the director’s own behaviour is tested when he becomes the victim of a mugging in another square, outside the gallery. Mad Men star Elisabeth Moss appears as a TV journalist, while The Wire’s Dominic West makes an appearance as a world-renowned artist.

In a year in which there was little consensus over which film would win the top prize, the Swedish director’s comedy-drama beat out some heavyweight competition, including new films from Michael Haneke, Yorgos Lanthimos and Lynne Ramsay. Ramsay’s film, a psychological drama called You Were Never Really Here, was awarded two prizes: a joint award for best screenplay (which she shared with Lanthimos) and best actor for Joaquin Phoenix, who plays a damaged ex-cop now working private security. The film, which was hailed as one of the highlights of this year’s Cannes, was backed with National Lottery funding through the BFI Film Fund.

Cannes’s “second prize”, the Grand Prix, was awarded to Robin Campillo’s 120 Beats per Minute, a drama about French AIDs activists. Meanwhile, Pedro Almodóvar’s jury, which included the actors Will Smith and Jessica Chastain, gave the best director prize to Sofia Coppola for The Beguiled, a civil war drama about an injured Union soldier who seeks shelter in an all-female boarding school.

Diane Kruger was awarded best actress for her performance in Fatih Akin’s In the Fade. The Jury Prize was awarded to the Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev for his film Loveless, while the Camera d’Or for best debut feature went to French writer-director Léonor Sérraille for her film Montparnasse Bienvenue.

Ruben Östlund, The Square

Robin Campillo’s 120 Beats Per Minute

Andrey Zvyagintsev, Loveless

Léonor Sérraille, Montparnasse Bienvenue

Sofia Coppola, The Beguiled

Lynne Ramsay, You Were Never Really Here and Yorgos Lanthimos, The Killing of Sacred Deer

Diane Kruger, In the Fade

Joaquin Phoenix, You Were Never Really Here

Qiu Yang, A Gentle Night

Nicole Kidman