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Palme d'Or - TV Tropes

  • ️Tue Mar 12 2024

MediaNotes / Palme d'Or

The Palme d'Or (English: Golden Palm) is the most prestigious award of the Cannes Film Festival.note  As the name implies, the festival is held in the French Riviera city of Cannes (Alpes-Maritimes departement), every year during the first weeks of May.

The top prize at Cannes has gone by different names at different times. It was originally called the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film. In 1955 the award was renamed Palme d'Or. In 1964 Cannes changed it back to Grand Prix du Festival International du Film, only to change the name to Palme d'Or yet again in 1975, this time for good. (If that's not confusing enough, the second-place award has been at various times called the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury, the Grand Prix du Jury, and simply the Grand Prix since 1995.)

The Palme d'Or is awarded by the festival's jury to the director of the winning film.note  Usually there's only one winner, but sometimes there are two, which are called "ex aequo", Latin for "equally placed." (This has happened seven times, the last in 1997.) The only exception to the one-or-two rule occurred in 1946, when eleven films won a Grand Prix to make up for the lack of awards given during WWII.

While there is no formal limit on the number of Palmes d'Or that can be won by a single director, no director has won more than two, an honor held by Alf Sjöberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Shohei Imamura, Emir Kusturica, Ken Loach, Michael Haneke, The Dardennes, Bille August, and Ruben Östlund. Typically, the jury does not unanimously award the Palme d'Or; however, the most recent winner that got unanimous votes is Bong Joon-ho's Parasite in 2019.note 

Starting with 1952, the festival has also given out a Palme d'Or for short film. The time limit for short film is fifteen minutes (as opposed to the Oscars, where the time limit is 40 minutes).note  The Short Film Palme d'Or has been awarded to both live action and animated films, while no animated film has ever won the feature award. On occasion, the festival has not given out a short film Palme d'Or, although that has not happened since 1971.

Winners (features)

Winners (shorts)