Andrea Arnold's American Honey wins Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival

23 May 2016

Film4 backed American Honey was among the prizes at the Cannes Film Festival last night, taking home the Jury Prize for British director Andrea Arnold, and earning a Commendation from the Ecumenical Jury.

It’s the third time Cannes-favourite Arnold has won the Jury Prize, following wins in 2006 for Red Road and 2009 for Fish Tank. She also served on the Jury for the Main Competition in 2012, and chaired the International Critics’ Week Jury in 2014.

Film4’s Head of Creative Rose Garnett commented: “We are so thrilled that Andrea Arnold's American Honey was selected In Competition at Cannes, and that the Festival’s Jury has seen fit to recognise the film with the Jury Prize. American Honey is a passionate and brilliant odyssey that takes us into the hearts and minds of the young and disenfranchised in modern America. Film4 is proud to have supported the project from its inception. Andrea is one of the great directors working today - and American Honey is a landmark film that places British talent at the centre of the world cinema stage.”

American Honey tells the story of Star (Sasha Lane), a teenage girl from a troubled home, who runs away with a travelling sales crew that drives across the American mid-west selling magazine subscriptions door to door. Finding her feet in this gang of teenagers, one of whom is Jake (Shia LaBeouf), she soon gets into the group’s lifestyle of hard partying, law-bending and young love.

American Honey’s Jury Prize is another feather in the cap for Film4, in a year when the organisation enjoyed a record-breaking awards season, and announced significant increase in its funding from Channel 4.

Film4 backed films secured 22 BAFTA nominations across seven films, winning two BAFTAs – Leading Actress for Brie Larson (Room) and Documentary for Amy; and 15 Oscar® nominations spread across six different Film4 productions, winning three – Actress in a Leading Role for Brie Larson, Documentary for Amy, and Visual Effects for Ex Machina.

In February this year, Channel 4 announced a major increase to Film4’s funding, increasing the budget from £15m to £25m in 2016, with the ambition of maintaining similar increased levels of Film4 funding in future years, a vote of faith in the strategy introduced by outgoing Director of Film4 David Kosse, which will be inherited by his successor Daniel Battsek.

Other exciting projects on Film4’s forthcoming slate include:

BILLY LYNN’S LONG HALFTIME WALK (director - Ang Lee)

FREE FIRE (Ben Wheatley)

HOW TO TALK TO GIRLS AT PARTIES (John Cameron Mitchell)

JOURNEYMAN (Paddy Considine)

OLD BOYS (Toby MacDonald)

ROOM 915 (short, Katie Mitchell)

THE OATH (Baltasar Kormákur)

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI (Martin McDonagh)

TRESPASS AGAINST US (Adam Smith)

T2 (Danny Boyle)

UNA (Benedict Andrews)

 

Future productions include:

AMERICAN ANIMALS (Bart Layton)

BEAST (Michael Pearce)

DARK RIVER (Clio Barnard)

MARY MAGDALENE (Garth Davis)

PETERLOO (Mike Leigh)

YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE (Lynne Ramsay)

 

Other recent projects include:

HIGH-RISE (Ben Wheatley)

OUR KIND OF TRAITOR (Susanna White)

ROOM (Lenny Abrahamson)

YOUTH (Paolo Sorrentino)

 

Film4 is Channel 4 Television’s feature film division, which develops and co-finances films and has an established track record for working with the most distinctive and innovative talent in UK and international filmmaking. Film4 has developed and/or co-financed many of the most successful UK films of recent years - Academy Award-winners such as Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, Lenny Abrahamson’s Room, Alex Garland’s Ex Machina, Asif Kapadia’s Amy, Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years and Phyllida Lloyd’s The Iron Lady, in addition to critically-acclaimed award-winners such as Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner, Shane Meadows’ This is England, Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths, Yann Demange’s 71, Clio Barnard’s The Selfish Giant, Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin and David Mackenzie’s Starred Up.