I, DANIEL BLAKE SHOCKS TO WIN A SECOND PALME D'OR FOR KEN LOACH

And, with that, the best chance in over 20 years of a woman winning the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival just died. Maren Ade's universally acclaimed Toni Erdmann had already won the FIPRESCI Prize and was the overwhelming favourite to win the whole shebang; a pre-ceremony rumour suggested that jury president George Miller hadn't liked the German director's comedy, however, and that it might go home empty-handed... as indeed it did. Instead, the Palme went to Ken Loach for his film I, Daniel Blake, permitting Loach to join the esteemed ranks of the few directors to have won two Palmes, after his win ten years ago for The Wind That Shakes the Barley. And there were plenty more surprises among the awards this evening, as you can see below:

Palme d'Or

I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach)

Grand Prix

It's Only the End of the World (Xavier Dolan)

Prix du Jury

American Honey (Andrea Arnold)

Prix de la Mise-en-Scene

Olivier Assayas (Personal Shopper)

Cristian Mungiu (Graduation)

Prix d'Interpretation Feminine

Jaclyn Jose (Ma' Rosa)

Prix d'Interpretation Masculine

Shahab Hosseini (The Salesman)

Prix du Scenario

Asghar Farhadi (The Salesman)

Camera d'Or

Divines (Houda Benyamina)

Short Film Palme d'Or

Timecode (Juanjo Gimenez)

Short Film Special Mention

The Girl Who Danced with the Devil (Joao Paulo Miranda Maria)

Palme d'Honneur

Jean-Pierre Leaud

CANNES 2016: FINAL PREDICTIONS INCLUDE TONI ERDMANN FOR THE PALME

21 films in, and with all other awards now distributed (except the Camera d'Or, which will take place during tonight's Ceremonie de Cloture), film fans will spend today pondering and predicting as to the fate of the films in Cannes 2016's Official Competition. Despite some major duds in the lineup, and a general slackening in quality toward the festival's end, the consensus seems to be that this year's batch was a vintage one (just don't ask Peter Travers...). Below, a brief analysis of how SOS thinks the awards could go down, as well as some highly tentative predictions.

Palme d'Or

Naturally, one must expect the best-reviewed film of the festival to stand the best shot at winning its top award, and what better than the best-reviewed film of any Cannes Film Festival in recent years? For once, a female-directed film - the likes of which are generally rare in Official Comp - leads the way, with Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann claiming a record high on Screen Daily's 2016 Jury Grid. Whether or not George Miller's nine-strong festival jury will agree is impossible to say, but it's rightly regarded as being at the front of the queue by most onlookers.

Prediction: Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)

Runners-Up: 2) Elle (Paul Verhoeven) / 3) Paterson (Jim Jarmusch) / 4) Graduation (Cristian Mungiu) / 5) Aquarius (Kleber Mendonca Filho)

Grand Prix

The obvious choice for Cannes' second place award would surely be the film one predicts as second-most-likely to win the Palme, right? But the awards work differently from that, and beyond the Palme, the jury may opt to place some of their other favourite films in individual achievement categories. I consider Cristian Mungiu's Graduation a safe choice for a top award, given that it's a relatively soft contender in some of the other categories.

Prediction: Graduation (Cristian Mungiu)

Prix du Jury

The wider film community seems to be in agreement: Aquarius' Sonia Braga is the favourite to win the Female Performance award. Despite her status, and the reported standard of her work in the film, that's a hotly contested category this year; Aquarius is also strong in the top awards, and could prove a surprise winner of the Palme. I'm not predicting Kleber Mendonca Filho's first Cannes entry to perform that well, but it would do well to win the Jury Prize instead.

Prediction: Aquarius (Kleber Mendonca Filho)

Prix de la Mise-en-Scene

Cannes' Best Director award can often poach some of the more challenging, auteuristic films from the top award categories. These tend to be among the festival's most divisive, stylised offerings. It's reasonable to predict Paul Verhoeven's Elle to win something this evening, and my bet is that it'll take this award: the clearest shot it has at a win. Verhoeven's an icon by this stage in his career, and would be a popular winner in this often-overlooked category.

Prediction: Paul Verhoeven (Elle)

Runners-Up: 2) Jim Jarmusch (Paterson) / 3) Nicolas Winding Refn (The Neon Demon) / 4) Cristian Mungiu (Graduation) / 5) Olivier Assayas (Personal Shopper)

Prix d'Interpretation Feminine

This is the award, outside of the Palme d'Or, that's got everyone talking. Countless contenders for the Female Performance award, with so many viable winners that a top five, as listed here, doesn't even begin to cover the possibilities. There are the consensus choices, like the aforementioned Sonia Braga, Kristen Stewart in Personal Shopper and Isabelle Huppert, vying for a record third win in this category for Elle. But those are all far safer swings, and I want my official predictions to reflect the surprising nature that the official jury awards often take at Cannes. I pick Sasha Lane's star-making turn in a film I feel sure will win something tonight, American Honey.

Prediction: Sasha Lane (American Honey)

Runners-Up: 2) Sonia Braga (Aquarius) / 3) Kristen Stewart (Personal Shopper) / 4) Isabelle Huppert (Elle) / 5) Ruth Negga (Loving)

Prix d'Interpretation Masculine

A much quieter range of possibilities for the Male Performance award this year. As a result, one of the Palme frontrunners takes precedence here, given the lack of challengers. Paterson may be the kind of well-reviewed but gentle pictures that goes home empty-handed, but a win for Adam Driver would be a very popular choice from George Miller's jury, and seems a likely one too.

Prediction: Adam Driver (Paterson)

Runners-Up: 2) Peter Simonischek (Toni Erdmann) / 3) Adrian Titieni (Graduation) / 4) Shahab Hosseini (The Salesman) / 5) Babak Karimi (The Salesman)

Prix du Scenario

Usually considered the lowliest of the main prizes at Cannes, the Screenplay award is nevertheless a prestigious accolade in its own right. It's often awarded to serious, dialogue-heavy, morally-complex dramas, the likes of which tend to be fairly common at the festival. This would obviously put both of this selection's Romanian New Wave entries, Graduation, and the first film to screen, Sieranevada at the top of the list. Given that Graduation has an award under its belt already, I'll plump for Sieranevada here.

Prediction: Cristi Puiu (Sieranevada)

Runners-Up: 2) Cristian Mungiu (Graduation) / 3) Jim Jarmusch (Paterson) / 4) Andrea Arnold (American Honey) / 5) Asghar Farhadi (The Salesman)

Camera d'Or

Pulling from across Cannes' entire selection, though with no entries this year in the Official Competition, the Camera d'Or is awarded to the best first feature-length film at the festival. As ever, there are many good choices for the award this year, with a couple of animated titles surely in strong contention. My prediction is The Red Turtle, famously the final film with input from Studio Ghibli, not least given that it has thus far failed to win the top awards from either FIPRESCI or the Un Certain Regard jury, despite my prediction that it was first in line for both.

Prediction: The Red Turtle (Michael Dudok de Wit)

Runners-Up: 2) My Life as a Courgette (Claude Barras) / 3) Wolf and Sheep (Shahrbanoo Sadat) / 4) Raw (Julia Ducournau) / 5) Mercenary (Sacha Wolff)

SEBASTIEN LIFSHITZ WINS A (BELATED) QUEER PALM FOR THE LIVES OF THERESE

Goodness only knows what came over Julie Gayet's jury when it rewarded Xavier Dolan's Laurence Anyways over Sebastien Lifshitz's Les Invisibles for the Cannes Queer Palm four years ago. Rectification from Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau, as their jury has overlooked Dolan's It's Only the End of the World - already the surprise winner of the Ecumenical Jury Prize anyway - in favour of Lifshitz's sequel-of-sorts to Les Invisibles, The Lives of Therese. Prejudging this decision as a perfect one.

Queer Palm

The Lives of Therese (Sebastien Lifshitz)

Queer Palm for Short Film

Gabber Lover (Anna Cazenave-Cambet)

ECUMENICAL JURY SURPRISES AT CANNES 2016, SIDES WITH DOLAN

It's not the end of the world, exactly, but not that anyone would think it so, unlike Xavier Dolan: he seemed to think it might have been after critics savaged his Cannes competition entry It's Only the End of the World. It's one of the main comp's worst-reviewed titles this year, and easily its worst-reviewed to have been the subject of some considerable defence, not least by its filmmaker. But Cannes' Ecumenical Jury seems to support the Canadian Dolan, rewarding him with their first place citation for this year's whole festival. See what else they chose to recognise - some typically left-field choices from the ecumenical jury - below:

Prize of the Ecumenical Jury

It's Only the End of the World (Xavier Dolan)

Special Commendations

American Honey (Andrea Arnold)

I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach)

THE HAPPIEST DAY IN THE LIFE OF OLLI MAKI WINS UN CERTAIN REGARD 2016

Marthe Keller's Un Certain Regard jury has rung in with its choices for the best in that selection at Cannes this year. Black-and-white Finnish film The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki made good on its critical acclaim by garnering the top prize, with all five recognised films having impressed critics over the past week-and-a-half. In what was a lineup of mostly lesser-known filmmakers, all of today's award winners ought to receive a welcome boost to their career prospects with these prestigious wins. Check it all out below:

Prix Un Certain Regard

The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki (Juho Kuosmanen)

Prix du Jury

Harmonium (Fukada Koji)

Prix Special du Jury

The Red Turtle (Michael Dudok de Wit)

Prix de la Mise-en-Scene

Matt Ross (Captain Fantastic)

Prix du Scenario

Delphine Coulin and Muriel Coulin (The Stopover)

CINEMA NOVO WINS CANNES' SECOND EVER L'OEIL D'OR

L'Oeil d'Or, a new prize at Cannes that originated at last year's festival, has been handed out. The award goes to the best new documentary screening in any section of Cannes. This year's choice is Eryk Rocha's Cinema Novo, which was one of the few contemporary titles in Cannes Classics. It profiles the work of some of Latin America's most important an influential filmmakers, and thus marks the second time - out of two - that a film from South America has received this award. What a fantastic way to celebrate this often underrepresented region for filmmaking, in a year that has also attracted considerable acclaim for fellow South American titles Neruda and Aquarius. There was a Special Mention for the highly-praised The Cinema Travellers, also from Cannes Classics and also a film about the medium itself, from debut directors Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya.

CANNES 2016 FIPRESCI PRIZE WINNERS ANNOUNCED!

The eternal arbiter of artistic excellence at festivals internationally, FIPRESCI, has revealed the three films to earn its prestigious prizes from Cannes 2016. As expected, Maren Ade's universally-acclaimed (and Screen Daily Jury Grid record-breaker) Toni Erdmann wins in the Official Competition section. There was another female director, from Critics' Week, among the award recipients, and a surprising choice for the jury's Un Certain Regard pick. Take a look:

FIPRESCI Prize for Official Competition
Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)

FIPRESCI Prize for Un Certain Regard
Dogs (Bogdan Mirica)

FIPRESCI Prize for Critics' Week / Directors' Fortnight
Raw (Julia Ducournau)

CANNES 2016: DAY TEN - ELLE

A quick one this. To conclude SOS long-distance report on the performances of the Cannes competition titles this year, here are some notices for Paul Verhoeven's Elle. The final film to screen for critics has closed the festival in fine form, with a surprisingly unbroken line of positive write-ups on the rape revenge film starring Isabelle Huppert. It sure shakes up the competition, and right at the last minute!

Elle enters the Palme Poll with a lofty placement indeed, and looks like a safe bet for several awards, not just one of the top three.

With the announcement of the FIPRESCI prizes, the Critics' Week and Directors' Fortnight polls are now closed. Select titles in these categories remain eligible for the Camera d'Or, l'Oeil d'Or and the Queer Palm, however. The UCR poll will stay open until that section's awards are announced.

OR SINAI'S ANNA WINS CANNES 2016 CINEFONDATION FIRST PRIZE

The Cinefondation award at Cannes is a pretty cool one to win: a €15,000 prize plus a guarantee that the winning director's first film will receive a screening in Cannes' official selection, once made. So congratulations to Or Sinai, the female director and editor (so many female winners at the festival this year so far, promisingly!) whose student feature Anna has won the 2016 Cinefondation top prize. Kawase Naomi, herself a former recipient of the award and a current mainstay on the Croisette, headed up the jury. Check out all their choices below:

First Prize
Anna (Or Sinai)

Second Prize
In the Hills (Hamid Ahmadi)

Third Prize
La Culpa, Probablemente (Michael Labarca)
The Noise of Licking (Nadja Andrasev)

CANNES 2016: DAY NINE - THE LAST FACE, THE SALESMAN

The Cannes Film Festival is winding down in its final days - yesterday saw the first of its four major strands, the Critics' Week, declare its award winners, and today saw the second, Directors' Fortnight, follow suit. And we now have confirmation that all films from all strands have been seen, though not all reviewed. In a year that started out strong, it has turned into one of the most unbalanced Cannes selections in a long time, with films setting record highs and record lows on Screen Daily's Jury Grid. The record low belongs to the first of today's competition titles, Sean Penn's The Last Face - literally not a positive report to be found on this one, not even one that skews almost-complimentary. Asghar Farhadi's The Salesman was next, though only four reviews exist for the film at time of writing, so expect plenty more to arrive through the night and into tomorrow. Finally, Paul Verhoeven's Elle has reportedly received some sort of screening, but there's no evidence of any articles on it as yet. Stay tuned tomorrow for the verdict.

Naturally, The Last Face robs From the Land of the Moon of its bottom place on the Palme Poll. The word is still out on The Salesman - good but not great seems to be what some are saying, so it assumes a tentative position around the midway point on the poll.

It was a day of wrapping things up in Cannes' lower sections. Un Certain Regard showed its closing film, prior to its official awards ceremony tomorrow. Francisco Marquez and Andrea Testa's The Long Night of Francisco Sanctis brought in middling responses from critics. On the day of its own awards ceremony, Directors' Fortnight closer Dog Eat Dog by Paul Schrader, which didn't win anything ftr, premiered to a mixed reaction, with equal parts gleeful admiration and derision for his crime thriller. And the day after its awards ceremony, we finally received word on Critics' Week title A Yellow Bird by K. Rajagopal. The one review to surface for the Singaporean film was also only mildly positive, though not unpromising.

With the joint Critics' Week / Directors' Fortnight FIPRESCI Prize still to be decided upon, their respective polls remain open, though neither A Yellow Bird nor Dog Eat Dog register especially impressive performances. Ditto Francisco Sanctis in Un Certain Regard.

Official Competition

The Last Face (Sean Penn)

IndieWire / Screen Daily / Variety / The Hollywood Reporter / The Playlist / The Guardian / The Film Stage / The Upcoming / The Telegraph / Little White Lies / The Village Voice / The A.V. Club

The Salesman (Asghar Farhadi)

Variety / The Hollywood Reporter / The Playlist / The Wrap

Un Certain Regard

The Long Night of Francisco Sanctis (Francisco Marquez and Andrea Testa)

International Cinephile Society / The Upcoming

Critics' Week

A Yellow Bird (K. Rajagopal)

Variety

Directors' Fortnight

Dog Eat Dog (Paul Schrader)

Screen Daily / The Guardian / Variety / The Hollywood Reporter / RogerEbert.com / Little White Lies

PATERSON'S NELLIE WINS PALM DOG 2016

Condogulations are in order as the most prestigious award has been handed out at Cannes. The festival's top honour, the Palm Dog, has gone to Nellie, the English bulldog who plays Marvin in Jim Jarmusch's Paterson, one of the favourites to win the Palme d'Or this year. Nellie makes history in the category, becoming the first dog to receive this award posthumously - tragically, she passed away a couple of months ago. See what the esteemed jury chose for their full slate of award winners below.

Palm Dog

Nellie (Paterson)

Jury Prize

Jacques (In Bed with Victoria)

Palm Dogmanitarian

Ken Loach (I, Daniel Blake)

CANNES DIRECTORS' FORTNIGHT AWARDS 2016

Although technically a non-competitive section of the Cannes Film Festival, the Directors' Fortnight nevertheless hosts its own selection of awards each year. For 2016's roster, they've split the three feature film awards four ways, including a Special Mention, and the sole short film award two ways, also with a Special Mention. The top award was presented to female Afghani director Shahrbanoo Sadat for only her second feature-length work Wolf and Sheep. Indeed, of the seven recognised filmmakers here, four were women. As with the Critics' Week awards yesterday, I'll keep the Directors' Fortnight poll open on the sidebar for the purpose of forecasting the result of the FIPRESCI prize. Check out all the Quinzaine winners below.

Art Cinema Award

Wolf and Sheep (Shahrbanoo Sadat)

Europa Cinemas Label for European Film

Mercenary (Sacha Wolff)

SACD Award for French-Language Film

The Together Project (Solveig Anspach)

SACD Special Mention

Divines (Houda Benyamina)

Illy Prize for Short Film

Chasse Royal (Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret)

Illy Prize Special Mention

The Beast (Miroslav Sikavica)

CANNES 2016: DAY EIGHT - GRADUATION, THE NEON DEMON

After two consecutive days of deflation, Cannes 2016 leapt right back into form with two very different films that nevertheless have inspired a very similar level of debate. Cristian Mungiu's Graduation joins fellow Romanian New Wave competition entry Sieranevada by Cristi Puiu in impressing journalists at the festival, inspiring raves from some reviewers. More raves, and more unexpectedly, for Nicolas Winding Refn's The Neon Demon, though not without an equal amount of pans - Refn's film drew even heftier booing than Olivier Assayas' Personal Shopper did three days ago, with many reported walk-outs and even mid-film heckles at the first press screening.

With reviews like that (and so many of them for a second screening of the day), one could imagine George Miller's jury going either way with The Neon Demon. Not so much with Graduation, which seems on a likelier path toward probable award wins, and thus seems a likelier contender for the Palme. It claims a higher spot on the Palme Poll as a result.

Still no word on the final film to show in Critics' Week, A Yellow Bird by K. Rajagopal, even as that strand officially concludes with its prize-giving ceremony. Never mind, as Un Certain Regard and Directors' Fortnight continue in earnest. UCR gave us two titles today: Juho Kuosmanen's The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki, which was well-received by what few critics even saw it, and Stefano Mordini's Pericle, which was met with less enthusiasm. Directors' Fortnight also gave us two: Houda Benyamina's debut Divines, which also wasn't seen by many but was praised regardless, and Laura Poitras' hotly-anticipated Risk, which drew largely good responses, if more muted ones compared to the reception to her previous film, the Oscar-winning Citizenfour.

The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki's supporters should be happy to know that it stands a good chance of winning some top UCR awards, according to the official SOS poll; not so much for Pericle, which places lower in the rankings. And both Divines and Risk fare well in the Directors' Fortnight rankings. The Critics' Week section remains open until after all awards are announced; A Yellow Bird remains to be reviewed at time of writing, and all Critics' Week and Directors' Fortnight films combined are in contention for a joint FIPRESCI Prize this weekend.

Official Competition
Graduation (Cristian Mungiu)
Variety / The Hollywood Reporter / The Playlist / The Upcoming / Little White Lies / Screen Daily / The Guardian / Cineuropa / The A.V. Club / Film Comment / International Cinephile Society
The Neon Demon (Nicolas Winding Refn)
The Wrap / The Telegraph / IndieWire / Little White Lies / Variety / The Playlist / Screen Daily / The Upcoming / The Hollywood Reporter

Un Certain Regard
The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki (Juho Kuosmanen)
The Upcoming / Screen Daily / The Hollywood Reporter
Pericle (Stefano Mordini)
The Hollywood Reporter / Variety / Cineuropa / Screen Daily

Directors' Fortnight
Divines (Uda Benyamina)
The Hollywood Reporter / Variety
Risk (Laura Poitras)
The Hollywood Reporter / Variety / The Telegraph / Cine-Vue / Screen Daily / IndieWire / The Guardian / The Wrap / The Playlist / Film Comment

CANNES 2016 CRITICS' WEEK PRIZES ANNOUNCED

The first awards are in from the Cannes Film Festival. Semaine de la Critique, or Critics' Week, features seven films from new and/or emerging filmmakers, many of whose debut works will compete for the weekend's upcoming Camera d'Or. All but one of these films have been covered in SOS' ongoing Cannes coverage; the lone holdout is A Yellow Bird by K. Rajagopal, for which no reviews have yet been published by major online outlets. Alas, my predicted favourite to win here, Julia Ducournau's Raw, failed to pick up an award, while my predicted least favourite, Mehmet Can Mertoglu's Album, succeeded! I'll keep the Critics' Week Poll still running, since these films will compete against the Directors' Fortnight lineup for a shared FIPRESCI Prize. Keep checking back here at SOS for updates on reviews for A Yellow Bird as the festival continues over the next few days. For now, though, here are the award winners from Critics' Week 2016:

Nespresso Grand Prize

Mimosas (Oliver Laxe)

France 4 Visionary Award

Album (Mehmet Can Mertoglu)

SACD Award

Diamond Island (Davy Chou)

Gan Foundation Award for Distribution

One Week and a Day (Asaph Polonsky)

Leica Cine Discovery Prize for Short Film

Prenjak (Wrejas Bhanuteja)

Canal+ Award for Short Film

Birth of a Leader (Antoine de Bary)

CANNES 2016: DAY SEVEN - IT'S ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD, THE UNKNOWN GIRL

Programmers at the Cannes Film Festival have plenty to answer for: after a somewhat disappointing day yesterday, they've followed up with an even more disappointing day today. The normally-reliable Dardenne brothers, who haven't debuted a film outside of Cannes' official competition in 20 years, deliver their weakest work to date in The Unknown Girl, if reviewers are to be believed. And Xavier Dolan's It's Only the End of the World hasn't helped brighten the mood, also drawing reactions that place his family reunion drama as his worst film yet. Oops!

Misfire away: both The Unknown Girl and It's Only the End of the World land in lowly positions on the Palme Poll.

Onwards and upwards, then, to a panoply of excellence in Cannes' other strands that utterly put today's Palme output to shame. In Directors' Fortnight, there were good reviews for Two Lovers and a Bear by Kim Nguyen, and great ones for Mercenary by Sacha Wolff and Therese by Sebastien Lifshitz. And in Un Certain Regard, a similar selection: good reviews for Behnam Behzadi's Inversion and Delphine and Muriel Coulin's The Stopover, and great ones for Michael Dudok de Wit's The Red Turtle and Koreeda Hirokazu's After the Storm - now here's a top comp regular who wouldn't have disappointed.

Prestigious placements for today's screeners from Un Certain Regard and Directors' Fortnight (no change in Critics' Week, with reviews for the final title A Yellow Bird as yet unavailable). In UCR, The Red Turtle finally kicks Clash off its top spot.

Official Competition
It's Only the End of the World (Xavier Dolan)
The Playlist / Variety / The Wrap / Cine-Vue / The Hollywood Reporter / IndieWire
The Unknown Girl (Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne)
The Guardian / The Wrap / IndieWire / Variety / The Hollywood Reporter / Screen Daily / The Upcoming / The Telegraph / The Film Stage / The Irish Times / International Cinephile Society / Collider / The Playlist / Cine-Vue / Sight & Sound / The A.V. Club / Little White Lies

Un Certain Regard
After the Storm (Koreeda Hirokazu)
Cine-Vue / The Telegraph / The Hollywood Reporter
Inversion (Behnam Behzadi)
Variety / The Upcoming / RogerEbert.com
The Red Turtle (Michael Dudok de Wit)
Variety / The Hollywood Reporter / The Telegraph / IndieWire
The Stopover (Delphine Coulin and Muriel Coulin)
The Hollywood Reporter / Cineuropa

Directors' Fortnight
The Lives of Therese (Sebastien Lifshitz)
Cineuropa
Mercenary (Sacha Wolff)
Screen Daily / The Hollywood Reporter / Cineuropa
Two Lovers and a Bear (Kim Nguyen)
Variety / Screen Daily / The Hollywood Reporter

CANNES 2016: DAY SIX - AQUARIUS, JULIETA, MA' ROSA

Seen before, but will they be seen again? The films of day seven of Cannes 2016 included a couple of high profile titles that had already been reviewed by major outlets. Chief among them was Pedro Almodovar's Julieta: the festival mainstay's latest has fared poorly on general release in his native Spain, but did better with the critics at Cannes, if not by much. Similarly underwhelming was Kleber Mendonca Filho's Aquarius, which likewise impressed some, and bested Almodovar's film by outright disappointing virtually none, but hasn't attracted the kind of praise lavished upon his last film Neighbouring Sounds. Closing the day out, and with more reviews likely to emerge over the coming night and day, was Brillante Mendoza's Ma' Rosa. One considers to question Thierry Fremaux's persistent championing of Mendoza and/or the critics' mass indifference to his work; little was expected of Ma' Rosa compared to its competition today, and reports are that it delivers on what little was expected, and little more.

The leaders of the Palme Poll won't be especially troubled by today's offerings, which seem destined for wins in other categories at the very most.

Another previously-reviewed film to debut today was Matt Ross' Captain Fantastic. The American indie made its debut earlier in the year at Sundance; those journos catching it for the first time here in Un Certain Regard seem to share the mild enthusiasm expressed by journos there. And that's about as good as it gets on what was likely the fest's weakest day thus far. Critics' Week's penultimate premiere was Vatche Boulghourjian's Tramontane, and Directors' Fortnight offered up Fiore by Claudio Giovannesi and The Together Project by the late Solveig Anspach. None of those three broke out exactly, with some (only some) particularly unkind notices for Fiore, though there was notable appreciation for Tramontane. New reviews for all four films (that I could find) in these lower strands of the festivals were pretty scarce, however, so the very light consensus on them is liable to change in the coming days.

And again, the polls for Un Certain Regard, Critics' Week and Directors' Fortnight remain unchanged yet again at the top. Nothing much to report, alas.

Official Competition

Aquarius (Kleber Mendonca Filho)

Screen Daily / The Hollywood Reporter / The Guardian / Variety / The Wrap / The Telegraph / The Film Stage / RogerEbert.com

Julieta (Pedro Almodovar)

The Upcoming / The House Next Door / The Wrap / The Irish Times / The Film Stage / The Telegraph / Twitch / The Playlist / IndieWire / Little White Lies / The A.V. Club / Screen Daily / RogerEbert.com

Ma' Rosa (Brillante Mendoza)

The Hollywood Reporter / RogerEbert.com / Screen Daily / The Upcoming

Un Certain Regard

Captain Fantastic (Matt Ross)

The Upcoming / Cine-Vue

Critics' Week

Tramontane (Vatche Boulghourjian)

The Hollywood Reporter / Cineuropa

Directors' Fortnight

Fiore (Claudio Giovannesi)

Screen Daily / The Hollywood Reporter / Cineuropa

The Together Project (Solveig Anspach)

Screen Daily / The Hollywood Reporter

CANNES 2016: DAY FIVE - LOVING, PERSONAL SHOPPER

In a day that saw a shock, unprecedented announcement that a new film - a documentary, no less - was being added to the official lineup at Cannes as a Special Screening, it was over to a couple of high-profile productions to step their game up and stand their ground en route to a potential Palme. Review aggregation sites might rate both Jeff Nichols' Loving and Olivier Assayas' Personal Shopper about the same, though the reactions to the two could hardly have been more different. Loving was loved by few, but liked by almost everyone; Personal Shopper is making headlines for the healthy barrage of boos it received after its premiere, but reviews are trending far more positive for the experimental psychological ghost story than they did for many of its competitors. Reviews are still coming in for the film, but all so far have been complimentary.

Divisive films only need a few voices of support to bag big awards from the nine-strong Palme d'Or jury. Luckily, Personal Shopper seems to have many more than just a few supporters, despite the boos, and thus enters the competition in earnest. Loving can't be ruled out either, but its chances of winning the top prize can't be judged quite as optimistically.

Un Certain Regard had an equally fine day, arguably even better than official comp. David MacKenzie's Hell or High Water attracted far more attention from critics than any of its fellow UCR screeners, likely due to the crime thriller's starry cast. Reviews were all good, though none quite great. There was more greatness to be found in Boo Jun Feng's Apprentice, though it wasn't unanimously felt by all of that film's reviewers. In other sidebars, only Anurag Kashyap's Raman Raghav 2.0 drew much attention, of a mixed variety for that matter. Its Directors' Fortnight companion Wolf and Sheep from Shahrbanoo Sadat surfaced with only two published pieces, and today's Critics' Week choice Mimosas from Oliver Laxe with only one - each faring fairly well.

Atop each of the sidebar polls there remains no change, even if none of today's new films in these strands quite disappointed. Strongest of the bunch is Apprentice in Un Certain Regard; up against even stronger competition, it can only muster up placement in fourth.

Official Competition

Loving (Jeff Nichols)

Screen Daily / Variety / IndieWire / The Wrap / The Playlist / The Hollywood Reporter / The House Next Door / Cine-Vue / The Irish Times / The Telegraph / Little White Lies / The L.A. Times / The A.V. Club / The Upcoming

Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas)

IndieWire / Variety / The Guardian / The Wrap / Screen Daily

Un Certain Regard

Apprentice (Boo Jun Feng)

Variety / The Hollywood Reporter / Screen Daily / The Upcoming

Hell or High Water (David MacKenzie)

Screen Daily / The Film Stage / The Playlist / The Guardian / Variety / The Telegraph / The Hollywood Reporter / The Upcoming / Cine-Vue

Critics' Week

Mimosas (Oliver Laxe)

Screen Daily

Directors' Fortnight

Raman Raghav 2.0 (Anurag Kashyap)

Screen Daily / The Hollywood Reporter / Variety

Wolf and Sheep (Shahrbanoo Sadat)

The Hollywood Reporter / International Cinephile Society