Four Film4 winners at 70th Cannes Film Festival Awards

30 May 2017

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London: May 28th, 2017: Film4 had four winners among the prizes the Cannes Film Festival handed out on Sunday evening:

• Joaquin Phoenix won Best Actor for his performance in You Were Never Really Here.
• Best Screenplay was jointly awarded to Lynne Ramsay (You Were Never Really Here) and Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou (The Killing of a Sacred Deer), both Film4 backed.
• Nicole Kidman was given a special 70th Anniversary Prize to mark her contribution to a festival in which she starred in four projects in Official Selection, two of which - The Killing of a Sacred Deer and How To Talk To Girls At Parties - were Film4’s.

Director of Film4 Daniel Battsek commented: “We’re hugely proud that the Cannes Jury has recognised so many talents from both in front of and behind the camera, from the Film4 films invited to screen at this year’s festival. Congratulations to all of our filmmakers. It’s a great start for these bold, newly acclaimed films, and we look forward to audiences around the world getting to see them in the coming year.”

Film4 backed four of the five British feature films invited to screen at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival: John Cameron Mitchell’s How To Talk To Girls at Parties screened Out of Competition, and Rungano Nyoni’s debut feature I Am Not a Witch screened in Directors’ Fortnight, in addition to the Competition films mentioned above from Lanthimos and Ramsay.

Cannes favourite Ramsay had previously won the Award of the Youth and the C.I.C.A.E. Award for Morvern Callar at Cannes in 2002, the Palmer d’Or for Best Short Film for Gasman in 1998, and the Jury Prize for Short Film for Small Deaths in 1996. Her previous film We Need To Talk About Kevin also screened In Competition in 2011, and her debut feature Ratcatcher screened in Un Certain Regard in 1999.

Yorgos Lanthimos won the festival’s Jury Prize in 2015 for his previous film The Lobster, and the Un Certain Regard Award and Award of the Youth for Dogtooth in 2009.

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 Andrea Arnold’s American Honey, 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.

Currently in production:

PETERLOO (Mike Leigh)

COLD WAR (Pawel Pawlikowski)

MARADONA (Asif Kapadia)

Future productions include:

WIDOWS (Steve McQueen)

THE LITTLE STRANGER (Lenny Abrahamson)

COUNTRY MUSIC (Tom Harper)

FREAKSHIFT (Ben Wheatley)

Currently in post-production  / coming soon:

THE FAVOURITE (Yorgos Lanthimos)

BEEN SO LONG (Tinge Krishnan)

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI (Martin McDonagh)

FIGHTING WITH MY FAMILY (Stephen Merchant)

LEAN ON PETE (Andrew Haigh)

MARY MAGDALENE (Garth Davis)

AMERICAN ANIMALS (Bart Layton)

DISOBEDIENCE (Sebastián Lelio)

AN EVENING WITH BEVERLY LUFF LINN (Jim Hosking)

DARK RIVER (Clio Barnard)

BEAST (Michael Pearce)

JOURNEYMAN (Paddy Considine)

OLD BOYS (Toby MacDonald)

Other recent projects include:

FREE FIRE (Ben Wheatley)

TRESPASS AGAINST US (Adam Smith)

BILLY LYNN’S LONG HALFTIME WALK (Ang Lee)

T2 TRAINSPOTTING (Danny Boyle)

AMERICAN HONEY (Andrea Arnold)

OUR KIND OF TRAITOR (Susanna White)

HIGH-RISE (Ben Wheatley)

ROOM (Lenny Abrahamson)

UNA (Benedict Andrews)

THE OATH (Baltasar Kormákur)