France extravaganza, Cannes 2022, to wrap with presentation of Palme d’Or on Sat

The 75th Cannes Film Festival wraps Saturday with the presentation of the Palme d’Or and other awards selected by the nine-member jury headed by French actor Vincent Lindon.

The closing ceremony brings to a close a Cannes that has attempted to fully resuscitate the annual France extravaganza which was cancelled in 2020 by the pandemic and saw modest crowds last year. This year’s festival also unspooled against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, which sparked red-carpet protests and a dialogue about the purpose of cinema in wartime.

The closing ceremony begins at 2:30 p.m. EDT and concludes roughly an hour later. Outside of France, it will be streamed live by Brut.

But what’s going to win? The Palme, one of film’s most prestigious awards, is famously impossible to handicap — though bookies still try their best. It hinges entirely on the deliberations of the jury which take place in private. Last year, the French body horror thriller “Titane” took the prize, making director Julia Decournau only the second female filmmaker ever to win the Palme. In 2019, Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” triumphed in Cannes before doing the same at the Academy Awards.

This year, the biggest Hollywood films at Cannes — “Elvis”, “Top Gun: Maverick”, “Three Thousand Years of Longing” — played outside Cannes’ competition lineup of 21 films.

Arguably — and there is always arguing at Cannes — among the best received films that could win the Palme are Lukas Dhont’s Belgian coming-of-age drama “Close,” Park Chan-wook’s twisty Korean neo-noir “Decision to Leave,” Cristian Mungiu’s Romanian drama “RMN” Ruben Ostlund’s social satire “Triangle of Sadness” and James Gray’s semi-autobiographical ’80s New York tale “Armageddon Time.”