Folk over at the London Film School (LFS) are still basking in glory after several of its alumni picked up a raft of prizes at Cannes, including the Cannes Palme d’Or for fellow graduate Simón Mesa Soto’s film Leidi; LFS chairman and graduate Mike Leigh’s film Mr Turner was also honoured.
 

 Timothy Spall in Mike Leigh’s Mr Turner

Leigh’s film won a Best Actor award for Timothy Spall as well as the Vulcan Award of the Technical Artist for cinematographer Dick Pope. The Salt of the Earth, directed by LFS graduate Juliano Ribeiro Salgado was awarded the Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize, alongside Wim Wenders.

Director Simón Mesa Soto, who graduated this year, picked up the short film award for his LFS graduation film Leidi, which was edited by Ricardo Saravia, another LFS graduate. Shot in Colombia, the film centres on a young mother living in the high neighbourhoods of Medellin, whose boyfriend and father of her child goes AWOL and is later spotted with another woman.

Director of the London Film School, Ben Gibson, said “The school is so proud that its newest star Simón Mesa Soto, and one who graduated a decade ago, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, and the work of our chairman and 60s graduate Mike Leigh, come together as Cannes winners. There couldn’t be a better expression of our philosophy: a tradition of of innovation. Well done to them all and also our other three graduates selected for Cannes – Panos H Koutras, Newton Aduaka and Aygul Bakanova.”

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