Anora , a tragi-comic modern-day Cinderella story about a stripper who marries a multimillionare, made by the American director Sean Baker, has won the coveted Palme D’or at the 77 th Cannes Film Festival . Baker, 53, dedicated the award to “all sex workers past and present” as he accepted the honour from the Star Wars creator George Lucas in front of an audience of stars gathered in the Palais des Festivals on the Cote D’Azur. And for Baker it really was a coveted prize.
“This literally has been my singular goal as a film-maker for the past 30 years,” he said, going on to thank his leading actor Mikey Madison, who plays Ani, a Brooklyn call girl whose life changes into a fairy tale and then into a nightmare after she meets the son of a Russian oligarch who wants to make her his wife. Greta Gerwig, who headed the panel that judged the main feature film award, praised the humanity in Anora as she declared it the winner. “It captured our hearts and lets us laugh and then broke our hearts,” the Barbie director added.
Baker admitted he was shaking, and then spoke with passion about the importance of seeing films in the cinema rather than at home or on a phone screen. View image in fullscreen Sean Baker, right, holds the Palme d'Or for the film Anora, alongside George Lucas on Saturday. Photograph: Andreea Alexandru/Invision/AP Anora had been a favourite to take the prize, although it had some competition from an unlikely Spanish-language musical, Emilia Pérez , .