The jury led by Xavier Dolan awarded the prizes in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes 2024 and Roberto Minervini is also among the winners.
Among the winners of the section Un Certain Regard at the Festival of Cannes 2024 there is also Italian Roberto Minervini, awarded Best Director ex aequo with Rungano Nyoni. The jury with president Xavier Dolan awarded the main prize to Black Dogthe film directed by Guan Hu.
Recognition for Italian cinema
The official awards in the Un Certain Regard section then include those awarded to Anasuya Sengupta for The Shameless and Abou Sangare.
The jury led by Xavier Dolan also consisted of Maimouna Doucouré, Asmae El Moudir, Vicky Krieps and the critic Todd McCarthy.
After Roberto Minervini’s victory as Best Director thanks to the film The Damned, Roberto Del Brocco – CEO of Rai Cinema, declared that the recognition confirms the talent of an author who proposed “a well-defined idea of cinema and enriches the path of a director now recognized internationally“.
In 2015, also in Cannes, the filmmaker focused his attention on Louisiana, while the new film is dedicated to invisible soldiers far away from the world, placing at the center a universal community of men grappling with a conflict that looks to our contemporaneity. Del Brocco reiterated that there is still a need to give a voice to those who have none and to those who risk dying every day, also praising the collaboration with the producer Paolo Benzi of Okta Film.
Nicola Claudio, president of Rai Cinema, added: “Roberto Minervini’s cinema is a concentration of reality, and the spectator can always find new tools in his stories to reflect and better understand what surrounds him. The public who chooses to go and see The Damned, in theaters these days, will certainly be able to recognize this quality and we hope that the award received at the Cannes Film Festival will give even more prestige to a film that will certainly not go unnoticed“.
The Damned and the cinema of reality by Roberto Minervini
The prizes awarded by the director
The awards awarded in this 2024 edition are as follows:
- Un Certain Regard Award: Black Dog by Guan Hu
- Jury Prize: The Story of Souleymane by Boris Lojkine
- Best Director ex aequo: Roberto Minervini – The Damned, Rungano Nyoni – On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
- Best Actress: Anasuya Sengupta – The Shameless
- Best Actor: Abou Sangare – The Story of Souleymane
- Prix de la jeunesse: Vingt dieux by Louise Courvoisier
- Special Mention – Norah by Tawfik Alzaidi
