This year, the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival was awarded to Iranian director Jafar Panahi for It Was Just an Accident ( Yek tasadef sadeh ) . To quote from the official program: “What begins as a minor accident sets in motion a series of escalating consequences.” Meanwhile, the Caméra d’Or went to Iraqi director Hasan Hadi for his directorial debut The President’s Cake ( Mamlaket al-qasab ), and the same quote above can be applied to this film as well.

“Their world collapses the day she returns from school with a tattoo on her arm,” is the official Cannes logline for Alpha. But the first three words – “Their world collapses” – effectively capture the mood of about half, maybe more, of this year’s Main Competition films. Dark, even bleak, with doomed protagonists, dire scenarios and nihilistic worldviews, this year’s selection often reflected a great anxiety with the world, and left the viewer satisfyingly and thoroughly distressed, paranoid and upset. In a good way.

This year’s German Film Critics’ Honorary Award went to Klaus Eder, retiring General Secretary of FIPRESCI, for lifetime achievement in the service of international film criticism.