In 1968, Cannes had imploded – the nouvelle-vague squad had stormed the Palais demanding the immediate end of the event in solidarity with the student revolt in Paris, among other things. A year later, the festival was still licking its wounds and changing colors. A parallel event – the Directors’ Fortnight – had been born. And a bunch of proto-new Hollywood kids invaded the Palais – this time, with a stance of love and peace and a tale of two rebels and their motorcycles on their way to New Orleans. The end is tragic, the US is seen from a rather different point of view, Jack Nicholson makes an unforgettable appearance, and Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper bring Easy Rider all the way to a nomination to the Palme d’Or and, for Hopper, a special award for First Worl. Their companions shared the same spirit of an age of change: the Palme d’Or goes to the Lindsay Anderson‘s unsettling  If…., and the Jury Prize went to Costa-Gavras‘ scathing Z. The times they were a-changing.