Sofia Coppola Becomes Second Woman To Win Best Director At Cannes Film Festival

Sofia Coppola won the Best Director award at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, which were announced on Sunday.

Coppola is only the second woman to achieve the honors in the festival’s 70-year history. She won for her film The Beguiled, which earned praise from Cannes judges. The film stars Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning and Colin Farrell and has been described as a “southern horror Gothic picture.” Hailed as Coppola’s most feminist work yet, the thriller tells a Civil War story from a female point of view.

The first and only other female director to take the honors as best director at Cannes was the Soviet director Yuliya Solntseva. She won in 1961 for her World War II film The Story of the Flaming Years.

Kidman also received a special award in honor of the festival’s 70^th anniversary; she appeared in four films that screened at Cannes this year, two of which were in competition.

The most prestigious award at the Festival, the Palme d’Or, was given to Ruben Ostlund‘s Swedish comedy The Square. Everyone was surprised by the win, including Ostlund himself.