Caméra d'Or, Cannes Film Festival

By: Joe Bowman

The Caméra d’Or, or Golden Camera, is a prize awarded annually at the Cannes Film Festival since 1978 to a film (screening either in competition, in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs or during the Semaine Internationale de la Critique) from a first-time director. The award, created by Gilles Jacob, was first given to Robert M. Young’s Alambrista! in 1978. Since then, the award has gone to a number of important world filmmakers including Jim Jarmusch, Naomi Kawase, Bahman Ghobadi, Tran Anh Hung, Jaco Van Dormael, Mira Nair, Fina Torres and Steve McQueen.

In thirteen years since 1978 and consistently since 2002, a “Mention spéciale” has been given to one or two runners-up. Some of the notable Mentions spéciales are Bruno Dumont’s La vie de Jésus (1997), Carlos Reygadas’ Japón (2002), Deepa Mehta’s Sam & Me (1991), Anton Corbijn’s Control (2007) and Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani’s Ajami (2009).

The list is a work-in-progress, as a number of films have yet to make it onto the site. If anyone can help me find suitable photos for either Alambrista or Jean-Pierre Denis’s Histoire d’Adrien, that would be fantastic.