At the start of the closing ceremony of the 74th Cannes Film Festival, Jury President Spike Lee was told in French to reveal the "first prize," but misinterpreted the phrase to mean "first place." As a result, he prematurely revealed that the film had won the Palme d'Or.
Prior to the Cannes premiere of the film, only a few details were made public. One was an intriguing log line that's been kicking around for a while now: "Following a series of unexplained crimes, a father is reunited with the son who has been missing for 10 years." The other was more esoteric, a simple definition of the element titanium: "A metal highly resistant to heat and corrosion, with high tensile strength alloys." When the teaser trailer dropped a week before the festival, speculation was rife, with many drawing comparisons with the work of body horror maestro David Cronenberg.
Alexia and Justine are also the names of the main characters in Raw, Julia Ducournau's 2016 debut film.
With this film, Julia Ducournau became the second female director and the fourth woman to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Director Jane Campion won the award in 1993 for The Piano (1993); actresses Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos were awarded the Golden Palm for their collaboration with director Abdellatif Kechiche on Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013) in 2013.
Official submission of France for the 'Best International Feature Film' category of the 94th Academy Awards in 2022.