Clio Barnard’s I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning has won the People’s Choice Award of Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight sidebar.
The kitchen-sink drama follows five working class friends — Patrick, Shiv, Rian, Oli and Conor — who came up together in a tower block in Birmingham who are now in their 30s and find themselves on increasingly divergent — and for most of them, increasingly constrained — paths to the future.
The People’s Choice award is backed by the Fondation Chantal Akerman, set up in honor of the late French director Chantal Akerman (Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce), a Directors’ Fortnight regular. It comes with a €7,500 ($8,700) cash bursary for the director of the winning film.
Barnard’s fifth feature is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Kieran Goddard. Enda Walsh, the writer behind Die My Love and Hunger, adapted the novel for the screen. The film stars Anthony Boyle, Joe Cole, Jay Lycurgo, Daryl McCormack and Lola Petticrew. Tracy O’Riordan produced for Moonspun Films. Curzon Film is distributing in the U.K., with Charades handling world sales.
Barnard is no stranger on the Croisette. Her feature The Selfish Giant won the Europa Cinemas Label prize back in 2013.
A second Directors’ Fortnight prize, the Coup de Cœur des Auteurs prize from French rights collection society SACD, went to Shana, the solo feature debut of French director Lila Pinell.
Adapted from her own short film, Shana stars Eva Huault as the titular character: a volatile small-time drug dealer with a toxic boyfriend about to get out of prison. Noémie Lvovsky, Inès Gherib, Anaïs Monah, Bettina De Van, Geneviève Krief and Sékouba Doucouré co-star. It is produced by Ecce Films and CG Cinema — the latter also behind Cannes Competition title Minotaur, by Andrey Zvyagintsev. Losange Films is handling world sales.