Documentary fans might be forgiven for nurturing a dream – that Cannes would follow the recent example of Venice and Berlin and award its top prize to a nonfiction film. Complete the documentary Triple Crown – the Golden Lion, the Golden Bear and the Palme d’or.
Alas, it wasn’t to be. On Saturday night, Cannes gave the gilded frond to a narrative-fiction film, as it generally does, Anatomy of a Fall. But perhaps the important thing is, the jury could have made the trifecta happen. Two documentaries appeared in main competition – Wang Bing’s Jeunesse (Youth) and Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters (Les Filles d’Olfa) – ending a nearly 20-year span in which no nonfiction film had been accorded the prestige of a competition slot (the last time it happened, in 2004, Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 went on to win the Palme d’or). As they say about the lottery, you can’t win if you don’t play. In terms of nonfiction, no spot in competition, no Palme Doc.
The top prize notwithstanding, this year’s Cannes will be remembered partly for the major platform it gave to nonfiction film. In addition to the pair of docs in main competition, the festival overseen by Thierry Frémaux programmed half a dozen documentaries in its Special Screenings section, including Steve McQueen’s four-hour-long-plus Occupied City and Wim Wenders’ 3D documentary Anselm, about the monumental German artist Anselm Kiefer. (Wenders also brought a narrative film to competition, Perfect Days, starring Koji Yakusho, who won Best Actor honors).
“It’s [fitting] that Cannes finally embraces documentaries because documentaries are an integral part of film history and our film business,” Wenders told us during an interview on the Croisette. “The documentary is one of the most important elements of filmmaking from the beginning. The Lumières [pioneering French filmmakers] made documentaries… It’s great to see the festival introduce documentaries back. I’m happy.”
The different tone was not lost on Kirsten Johnson, the filmmaker who presided over the jury for L’Oeil d’or, the special prize awarded to the top documentary at Cannes.
“For me, to have the documentary film be respected at Cannes,” she told Deadline, “it affirms what I think about documentary — that it is film, it is great cinema. It can be; not all of it is, like not all scripted films are great cinema, but we’re striving for that.”
The L’Oeil d’or prize is traditionally the most prominent way the festival pays homage to documentary. But the honor only dates back to 2015, and it was created by an outside entity – LaScam, the French society of multimedia authors – with the approval of the festival. This year’s prize was awarded jointly to Ben Hania’s Four Daughters – the main competition entry – and The Mother of All Lies (La Mère de tous les mensonges), by Moroccan director Asmae El Moudir, which premiered in the Cannes sidebar Un Certain Regard.
Johnson (Cameraperson, Dick Johnson Is Dead) sees significance in the festival making room for Four Daughters, The Mother of All Lies and another urgent documentary out of the Middle East, Bread and Roses, directed by Sahra Mani. The latter film shows the disastrous impact on women of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, drawing on furtively recorded cell phone video.
“I do believe that cinema’s this essential tool, that humans fight for their liberty with cinema,” Johnson noted, “and having the documentary at Cannes just feels like an affirmation of those struggles.”
Cannes pays heed to documentary in other ways, principally through the festival’s Cannes Classics section. The section, considered an integral part of the sélection officielle, premieres documentaries about notable filmmakers, actors or other aspects of cinema, with this year’s program featuring films on French director Jean-Luc Godard, Belgian-French director Agnès Varda, Brazilian director Nelson Pereira dos Santos, and Norwegian actress and director Liv Ullmann. La Saga Rassam-Berri, le cinéma dans les veines explored two interconnected families deeply linked to French cinema.
“We have more and more documentaries about cinema being produced… coming from many places,” observed Gérald Duchaussoy, who heads up Cannes Classics. “There are some which are really literary, cultural-oriented [and] some other documentaries which are more into the energetic puzzle construction, with very fast editing. You can see all the different schools… trying to play with the form.”
The Marché du Film, running concurrently with the Cannes Film Festival, provides room for nonfiction with its Cannes Docs section (formerly known as the Doc Corner – it’s still located in a corner of the palais, but at least in terms of branding has disassociated itself from what might be considered a marginalizing “corner” or “out of the way” implication). Cannes Docs, headed by Pierre-Alexis Chevit, defines its role as reaffirming “the fundamental place and role of the documentary genre, and works at ever-strengthening its organic integration within the global film industry.” To that end, it offers daily talks, one-on-one consultations, Docs-in-Progress showcases, social events and other activities.
Doc Day, a signature event of Cannes Docs, unfolded on the plush Plage du CNC along the Mediterranean, highlighted by a Q&A with Kirsten Johnson, a conversation with Kaouther Ben Hania, a discussion with director Justine Harbonnier about her film Caiti Blues, and an opulent private lunch further down the beach attended by leading industry figures including former Sundance Film Festival director Tabitha Jackson, TIFF documentary chief programmer Thom Powers, and the likes of filmmaker Dheeraj Akolkar, director of Liv Ullmann – A Road Less Travelled (the Cannes Classics world premiere).
Johnson’s Doc Day Q&A began with the moderator, filmmaker Guetty Felin, declaring “Les documentaries sont des films – documentaries are films!”, which, as one might imagine, went over well with the audience. Doc enthusiasts can be excused for feeling the need to make that assertion, because it hasn’t always been clear from past Cannes film festivals that nonfiction film belonged in the same conversation as works of fiction. Cannes, above all, emphasizes glamour – a word not often associated with documentary. It emphasizes stars and the intrinsic romance of (narrative) moviemaking.
At the same time, no other festival so consciously honors the history of cinema. The official poster art often evokes that glorious past – this year, the palais was draped with a gorgeous black and white image of a young Catherine Deneuve captured more than 55 years ago, as the festival noted, “standing on Pampelonne beach, near Saint-Tropez, for the shooting of La Chamade by Alain Cavalier.” And Cannes Classics screens restored classics – a lineup this year featuring Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945), Godard’s Contempt (1963), and even silent films by Man Ray dating back almost a century.
That’s the Cannes paradox – it reveres cinema and anoints new works as worthy of joining the ranks of great movies, but its definition of cinema has been cribbed. This year, that changed, at least to some degree. Here’s hoping it won’t be another 20 years before documentaries again get their due on the festival’s main stage.
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