2018 Cannes Film Festival 2018 Cannes Film Festival The 71st annual Cannes Film Festival was held from 8 to 19 May 2018. Australian actress Cate Blanchett acted as President of the Jury. The Japanese film "Shoplifters", directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, won the Palme d'Or. Asghar Farhadi's psychological thriller "Everybody Knows", starring Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz and Ricardo Darín, opened the festival and competed in the Main Competition section. It was the second Spanish-language film to open Cannes, following Pedro Almodóvar's "Bad Education", which screened on the opening night of the 2004 festival. The official festival poster features Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina from Jean-Luc
Cannes Film Festival origins may be attributed in part to the French desire to compete with the Venice Film Festival, which at the time was shocking the democratic world by its fascist bias. The first festival was planned for 1939, Cannes was selected as the location for it, but the funding and organization were too slow and finally the beginning of World War II put an end to this plan. On 20 September 1946, twenty-one countries presented their films at the First Cannes International Film Festival, which took place at the former Casino of Cannes. In 1947, amid serious problems of efficiency, the