, a raw, highly explicit and often hilarious story about a New York erotic dancer, was crowned with the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday. It confirmed its director Sean Baker as one of the leading voices of American indie cinema, and promises to make a star of 25-year-old Mikey Madison. She plays the lead role as a dancer who strikes gold with a wealthy client, only to face the wrath of his Russian oligarch parents.
As head of the jury, director Greta Gerwig praised as an “incredible, human and humane film that captured our hearts”. Baker dedicated the film to all sex workers. “This literally has been my singular goal for the past 30 years, so I’m not really sure what I’m going to do with the rest of my life,” he said.
The 77th edition of the festival on the French Riviera saw several highly charged feminist and political films, and lots of gore and sex. A trans woman won best actress for the first time, as Karla Sofia Gascon took the award for audacious musical in which she plays a Mexican narco boss who has a sex change. The jury shared it between Gascon and her co-stars Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez – saying they were rewarding the “harmony of sisterhood” – though only Gascon was at the ceremony.
She dedicated it to “all the trans people who are suffering”. “We all have the opportunity to change for the better, to be better people,” she said. “If you have made us suffer, it is time for you also to change.
” There were fewer.
