Meryl Streep, Juliette Binoche's tears and the secret to a good awards ceremony

As much as the authors try to make them captivating, awards ceremonies are by nature very boring, unless there is something that manages to break through the pomposity that the ritual brings with it to deliver something true and authentic in those who watch them. It happened at the last one Cannes Film Festivalwhen Juliette Binoche awarded the Palme d'Or for lifetime achievement to Meryl Streep and he almost couldn't read the reasons given on the sheet of paper he was holding in his hands with emotion. Binoche sobbed and struggled to get to the end for a very simple reason: the admiration for a colleague who has done so much for her but also for cinema, contributing thanks to her skill and her chameleon-like ability to give life to very different women capable of leaving a trace in anyone who has met them on the screen. «We love you, you are an international treasure. You changed the way we see women in the world of cinema, you gave us a new image of ourselves.” said Binoche in front of a visibly emotional Meryl Streep who, at a certain point, even caressed her cheek to calm her down and allow her to continue with her speech.

The beautiful thing is that the tears at the Palais des Festivals were not only those of Juliette Binoche and Meryl Streep, but also of audiencewith the president of the jury Greta Gerwig visibly moved because the power of cinema is precisely this: recognize the talent of all the people who are committed to making it great transforming it into a living and throbbing organ – it happened, if we think about it, again in Cannes in 2016, when the young Xavier Dolan won the jury prize for Mommy and chose to dedicate his acceptance speech to the then president of the jury Jane Campion, explaining to the public that if he began to love cinema and dream of one day becoming a director, it was all thanks to Piano lessons who, in Cannes, won the Palme d'Or in 1993, the first awarded to a woman.

The embrace between Juliette Binoche and Meryl StreepStephane Cardinale – Corbis/Getty Images

These days in Italy there is a beautiful documentary in theaters called Room 999 during which director Lubna Playoust asks 30 directors – including Wenders, Cronenberg, Diwan, Assayas and Sorrentino – whether cinema is an art destined to die or survive. Although some are guilty of pessimism like Asghar Farhadi, the majority of those interviewed are convinced that cinema will survive because telling stories is something man will never give up. And as long as there are formidable actresses like Meryl Streep to bring them to life on the screen, nothing will truly be lost.