French filmmaker Julia Ducournau has become only the second female director to win the Palme d'Or, the Cannes Film Festival's top prize, for her film "Titane."
In a shock moment, jury president Spike Lee announced the win in error early in the awards ceremony after a miscommunication. Gasps rang around the Grand Theatre Lumiere before the ceremony collected itself and reverted back to the normal running order. The awkward atmosphere did not dissipate, however, with the typically garrulous Lee noticeably bashful.
"Raw" director Ducournau returned to Cannes with her second film, her first in competition. "Titane" tells the story of a young woman who survives a car crash as a child and goes on to have a peculiar relationship with cars in adulthood. It divided critics with vocal supporters and detractors, but the jury of Lee, fellow directors Mati Diop, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Jessica Hausner, actors Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mélanie Laurent, Tahar Rahim and Song Kang-ho and singer-songwriter Mylène Farmer saw fit to award it top honors.
