Agnès Varda’s ‘Faces Places’ Cat Wins Palme de Whiskers at Cannes 2017
The most prestigious award at the Cannes Film Festival every year is the Palme d’Or, which this year went to Ruben Östlund‘s “The Square,” but no Cannes is complete without the presentation of the highly coveted Palme de Whiskers, awarded annually in recognition of the Best Feline Performance. This year’s prize went to Mimi, from Agnès Varda‘s “Faces Places,” RogerEbert.com reports. The documentary also won the Golden Eye prize, which recognizes a documentary from across all of the festival’s sidebars.
The other award given by the FFFA (Feline Film Festivals Authority), the Kittycat Peace Prize, went to Baby, the kitten from “The Square.” The award was presented by Mrow, the Tehran street cat who won last year’s award for his performance in Asghar Farhadi’s “The Salesman.”
Rocky, who won last year’s Palme de Whiskers for his role in Chloe Sevigny’s short film “Kitty,” served as jury president for 2017. The rest of the jury was comprised of Miss Kitty (RogerEbert.com’s Barbara Scharres), Leyla (Art Forum’s Amy Taubin), Orson (IndieWire’s Eric Kohn), Prince (Toronto Film Festival’s Magali Simard), Nico (Vogue’s John Powers), Chubbs (novelist Sandi Tan), Henry (The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis) and Lola (Art Basel’s Marian Masone).
Previous Palme de Whiskers winners include Stripey, the big caged tiger in Jia Zhang-ke’s “Mountains May Depart,” Dac, from “Misunderstood!” and Tabitha from “Moonrise Kingdom.”
Cannes 2017: How My First Trip to the Festival Convinced Me That Movies Matter More Than Ever
In other news, the Palm Dog award at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival went to the poodle Bruno, from Noah Baumbach’s “The Meyerowitz Stories.” The German shepherd Lupo took the grand jury prize for his role in the Critics Week title “Ava.”
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