The Palm Dog winners, that is…

Every year, since 2001, Toby Rose and his crew of esteemed film critics hand out a prize which simply goes to the dogs. The Palm Dog awards ceremony is now as much of a must-attend event as any prize bestowing event in Cannes. This year, the Palm Dog took on a whole new meaning as Messi, last year’s winner and the wonderful dog featured in the multi-awards winning French film Anatomy of a Fall walked up the red carpeted stairs in front of the Grand Théâtre Lumière on opening night, alongside human stars like Juliette Binoche and Meryl Streep.

Messi even had his own show in Cannes, reporting from the red carpet, and voiced by a human actor as they interviewed celebrities and delegations attending the festival.

Among those featured on the jury for the Palm Dog, chosen to pick this year’s winner were Kaleem Aftab (Red Sea Film Festival programmer), Peter Bradshaw (The Guardian), Rita Di Santo (Vice President, FIPRESCI) and Wendy Mitchell (contributing editor, Screen International and author of Citizen Canine: Dogs in the Movies). It is to Mitchell that all the photos in this piece need to be credited.

For the first time since the inception of the awards the winning trophies, which include special custom-made Palm Dog collars for the top prizes, were given to the actual dogs. In past editions, stand-ins were picked while wandering the Croisette as many of the dog actors were unable to attend the ceremony — stuck in quarantines or just not valued as much as their human co-stars. This made this year’s edition extra special and the personal stories of those top dogs — pardon the pun — were particularly touching this year.

In this record-breaking year, the top winner was Kodi, who plays dog in the dock Cosmos in Dog on Trial, which had its world premiere in Un Certain Regard, directed by and starring Laetitia Dosch, who attended the Palm Dog ceremony along with her canine star.

Kodi, playing Cosmos in the Swiss French film, is on trial for his life and the film explores the status of dogs in society: are they treated as living beings or just as property? This win is especially poignant as the film is inspired by a true story. Kodi himself was rescued from a shelter in Narbonne but now lives in Montargis, France. He is nearing his 10th birthday and will soon retire from acting after his exciting first trip to Cannes with his trainer and vet. In the press release for the Palm Dog it was pointed out, on strict authority, that Kodi is still very active, walks at least 10 kilometres a day and is in great shape. The former rescue dog is a blond Griffon cross and delivers a fine four-legged swan song. Kodi learned many tricks for the film, including howling like a wolf. His trainers found out that the way to get him to howl was to imitate a hungry kitten.

What is that quote about never acting with animals or babies? Well, it seems this year’s Cannes forgot it all and really went to the dogs. Rose himself admitted that the award is a good excuse to reward some films in the official program, from every section, which may not get top prizes otherwise.

Rose admitted “We think this is the biggest-ever year for the Palm Dog, there were dozens of films with canine contenders in Cannes 2024, exploring so many aspects of the human-canine connection. We’ve had so much attention on dogs at Cannes 2024, with more of the real canine actors making the trip to be on the Croisette in person. We think this is part of the Messi effect – our wonderful winner Messi who played Snoop in Anatomy of a Fall, won the Palm Dog and the Palme d’Or for the first time last year, and then went on to great fame at the Oscars. Messi paved the way for these great dog actors to demand worldwide attention. Now we know Kodi and Little Xiu will impress audiences worldwide.”

Speaking of Little Xiu, the Grand Jury Prize went to the whippet Little Xin (Xiao xin in Chinese) in Black Dog, who was also present along with her human co-star. Big name director Hu Guan shines the spotlight on stray dogs in China in the Un Certain Regard world premiere. The photogenic dog star is an integral part of the film and spends time in a cage but also in a rather stylish sidecar with the film’s dashing lead human Eddie Peng, the famous Taiwanese actor and singer who actually adopted Little Xin after bonding with her on the film. Black Dog marks a milestone for mutts in the history of Chinese cinema. After carefully going through a quarantine process, Little Xin accompanied Eddie in Cannes. And he was present to receive his award, the Palm Dog Grand Jury Prize.

Past winners include Uggie as The Dog in The Artist (2011); Dug, the animated dog voiced by Bob Peterson in Up (2009); Einstein in The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017); and Sayuri as Brandy in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) which saw Quentin Tarantino himself attend the Palm Dog ceremony.

The 2024 wealth of canine Cannes performances has resulted in the awarding of an unprecedented three “Mutt Moment” awards at The Palm Dog ceremony: 

• Chippy the dog with a Megalon leg in Megalopolis by director Francis Ford Coppola.

• Dave in Bird - by director Andrea Arnold. This Parsons Terrier makes a surprising appearance in the drama set in Gravesend, England. Arnold says, “He’s based on my childhood dog Shep who was pretty vicious but Dave himself was very happy.” The hardest challenge was getting him to keep his tail still during a pivotal scene when he couldn’t move. 

• Feisty hound ensemble in a car in Kinds of Kindness by director Yórgos Lánthimos. In the film’s second story, ‘RMF is flying,’ Liz (Emma Stone) relates a dream to her dad (Willem Dafoe) about an island in which dogs were in charge, people were animals and animals were people.. and the dogs treated them pretty well…

The Palm Dog ceremony took place on Friday 24th May 2024 at The Members Club at La Plage du Festival on the famous Cannes Croisette. Palm Dog 2024 is proudly sponsored by Woopets, France’s biggest pet website.

Also supporting Palm Dog 2024 is Knauf Jewels and Soho Poms.

All images courtesy of Wendy Mitchell.