• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, June 21, 2022

“The Wish,” a nearly three-minute-long holiday ad for German supermarket chain Penny won the Grand Prix for Film Craft at the Cannes Lions Festival Tuesday evening.

The emotional ad, which has already won a bunch of awards including Clios and Effies, was a heartfelt plea from a mom wishing that her teenage son could “get his youth back,” after being stuck at home for two years during the pandemic.

Film Craft Lions Jury President, Patrick Milling-Smith, Co-Founder & Global CEO, Smuggler USA, stated, "Ultimately we awarded the Grand Prix to a film that is almost a throwback to classic filmmaking and had to be so perfectly crafted on every level to truly resonate and work. In the wrong hands a film like this could have been lost to over sentimentality, or victim to a few false notes, but it is in fact perfectly complete and the obvious work of a filmmaker in utter command of his craft."

In addition to the Grand Prix there were 54 Film Craft Lions awarded this year including 11 Gold, 17 Silver and 25 Bronze. The awards celebrate on-screen artistry.

Day 2 awards at the festival also included Industry Craft Lions, Digital Craft Lions, Design Lions, Entertainment Lions, Entertainment Lions For Music and Entertainment Lions for Sport. 

There were 21 Digital Craft Lions awarded this year 3 Gold,  7 Silver and 10 Bronze. The Grand Prix was presented to, ‘Backup Ukraine’, by Virtue Worldwide, New York.

Virtue, part of media company Vice, created the work for UNESCO and Blue Shield Denmark. The work was anchored by a digital and mobile tool that allows people in Ukraine to capture images of artifacts that are endangered by the Russian Invasion. 

Digital Craft Lions Jury President, Luciana Haguiara, Executive Creative Director, Media.Monks, Brazil, stated: “The Backup Ukraine project allows all the citizens from Ukraine to preserve their greatest wealth as a nation: their culture. Using a real-time smartphone camera and GPS, everyone can capture any place or monument in minutes and save the data as blueprints in the cloud to preserve it forever. And all of this, with their own phones. A project that turns every Ukrainian citizen into a guardian of their national heritage. Because culture is the identity of people and it can’t be destroyed.”

In the Design Lions, 38 Lions were awarded including 6 Gold, 10 Silver and 21 Bronze.  

The Grand Prix went to ‘Portuguese (Re)Constitution', for Penguin Books, by FCB Lisbon. It was the first-ever Design Lions Grand Prix won by an entity from Portugal. The campaign promoted a book celebrating the 50^th anniversary of Portugal’s “Carnation Revolution.”

Design Lions Jury President Lisa Smith, Executive Creative Director, Jones Knowles Ritchie (JKR), USA, stated: “This year’s Grand Prix in Design shows the power of a simple idea — freedom, and the use of the most primitive medium to execute it — a pencil. We debated at length whether a publication should be a Grand Prix in an era where we have all the technology and innovation at our fingertips, but the symbolism of defacing a fascist constitution with poems using words selected from the historic document and illustrations covering the remaining ones was not only the highest form of craft and execution but sending a beautiful message of freedom of speech that many children in Portuguese schools will go on to learn for years to come.”

There were 25 Industry Craft Lions, celebrating the creative artistry, talent and skill required to bring a creative idea to life including 5 Gold, 10 Silver, 9 Bronze Lions.  The Grand Prix went to ‘Hope Reef’, for Mars Petcare, by AMV BBDO, London. 

There were 25 Entertainment Lions this year:  4 Gold, 7 Silver and 13 Bronze. The Grand Prix went to ‘Eat a Swede’ for the Swedish Food Federation, by McCann Stockholm. Entertainment Lions Jury President Maria Garrido, Global CMO, Formerly Vivendi, France, said, “I was mesmerised, disturbed, entertained, amused and hungry all at the same time!" 

In the Entertainment Lions for Music, 17 Lions awarded: 4 Gold, 5 Silver and 7 Bronze. The Grand Prix was awarded to the Residente music video, ‘This Is Not America ft Ibeyi’, by Doomsday Entertainment, Los Angeles / Sony Music Latin, Miami, USA. The work was an indictment of U.S. Imperialism.

Entertainment Lions for Music Jury President Amani Duncan, CEO, BBH, USA, stated: “We awarded the Grand Prix to this piece of work, because of the video's undeniably stunning visuals and incredible production quality. While the video has a very distinct point of view that may not be shared by all, it is an extremely powerful statement on socio-economic and culture from an underserved community.” 

There were 22 Entertainment Lions for Sport issued this year: 3 Gold, 7 Silver and 11 Bronze. The Grand Prix went to ‘NikeSync’, for Nike by R/GA London.  The NikeSync app offers women best practices for syncing their training to their menstrual cycles.