the Queer Palm attributed to the film “Monster” by Hirokazu Kore-eda

Still in the running for the Palme d’Or, the film Monster by Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda received the Queer Palm on the evening of Friday, May 26. This distinction, awarded by an independent jury, rewards each year since 2010 a film “dealing with LGBT+ themes or characters, feminists or challenging gender norms” explain the organizers of this alternative competition on their website.

“We tend too much to consider what we don’t know as monstrous”, confided to franceinfo Hirokazu Kore-eda, justifying the choice of the title of his film. Evoking in turn the family, the weight of institutions and the special relationship between two young students, the Japanese master puts into images what he himself feels vis-à-vis his children. “As a father, I observe that there is a moment when the child exceeds what we had imagined for him. It escapes us and it is not necessarily negative. This is what allows him to leave the nest and become an adult, he explains. But it is certain that the parents then feel a great sense of anguish and helplessness.”

> Our interview with Hirokazu Kore-eda:

Monster was in the running among a dozen other films, including Anatomy of a fall by Justine Triet or even time to love by Katell Quillevere. The jury was chaired this year by American actor and director John Cameon Mitchell, and was made up of director and actress Isabel Sandoval, French actress Louise Chevillotte, Belgian director Zeno Graton and programmer and critic Cédric Succivalli.