Friday, March 29, 2024

Spike Lee Admits He ‘Messed Up’ After Prematurely Announcing Palme d’Or Winner at Cannes

spike-lee

*Spike Lee caused quite the stir at the Cannes Film Festival awards ceremony on Saturday when he mistakenly announced the winner of the top honor.

According to reports, after a miscommunication with the host, French actress Toria Dillier, Lee prematurely revealed “Titane” by French filmmaker Julia Ducournau as the recipient of this year’s Palme d’Or.

The moment left the acclaimed filmmaker embarrassed, and Lee later apologized, saying he “messed up, simple as that. And I was very specific to speak to the people of Titane … I apologized, they said, ‘Forget about it, Spike.’ So, that means a lot to me.” 

Lee was named jury president of the Cannes Film Festival last January. 

“In 63 years of life I’ve learned that people get a second chance, this is my second chance,” he said over the weekend. “I apologize for messing up. It took a lot of suspense out of the night I understand, it wasn’t on purpose.”

READ MORE: Cannes Film Festival Jury President Spike Lee Talks Netflix, George Floyd, Knicks and More (Watch)

His fellow jury member Maggie Gyllenhaal said the error “was like an injection of humanity into the middle of the ceremony,” according to Deadline. 

Here’s more from PEOPLE

Titane centers on a young woman who has an unusual relationship with cars after surviving an accident as a child. Although critics were divided on the film from the director of Raw, the jury — which also consists of directors Mati Diop, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Jessica Hausner, actors Mélanie Laurent, Tahar Rahim, Song Kang-ho and singer/songwriter Mylène Farmer — voted to award the film the top prize.

Ducournau is the second female filmmaker to earn the Palme d’Or after Jane Campion’s “The Piano” won in 1993.

Lee previously said he was “shocked, happy and surprised” when he was tapped to head the prestigious Cannes panel. He is the first Black person to hold that position in the festival’s 74-year history.

“I’m honored to be the first person of the African diaspora (USA) to be named President of the Cannes Jury and of a main film festival,” he said at the time. 

Full list of Cannes prizes below, as reported by NBC News.

COMPETITION

Palme d’Or: “Titane”

Grand Prix — TIE: Asghar Farhadi, “A Hero” and Juho Kuosmanen’s “Compartment No. 6”

Director: Leos Carax, “Annette”

Actor: Caleb Landry Jones, “Nitram”

Actress: Renate Reinsve, “The Worst Person in the World”

Jury Prize — TIE: Nadav Lapid “Ahed’s Knee” and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Memoria”

Screenplay: Ryusuke Hamaguchi, “Drive My Car”

OTHER PRIZES

Camera d’Or: “Murina,” Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic

Short Films Palme d’Or: “All the Crows in the World,” Tang Yi

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