Cannes 2009 Winners
UPDATE: Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon” won the Palme d’Or!
It wouldn’t be surprise if French prison drama “A Prophet” directed by Jacques Audiard win the race for best picture. Another favorite is New Zealand’s Jane Campion with her biopic “Bright Star,” who won the Golden Palm in 1993 with “The Piano,” as is Pedro Almodovar and his “Broken Embraces” starring Penelope Cruz.
Among the other frontrunners for the Palme d’Or is Austrian Michael Haneke for his “The White Ribbon.” Italian entry “Vincere” about Mussolini’s secret marriage was broadly popular. Ken Loach’s “Looking for Eric,” featuring former football star Eric Cantona also is one of this festival’s most popular entries.
Quentin Tarantino is thought to be an outside prospect for Cannes’ biggest prize, as his film “Inglourious Basterds” received a mixed reaction when it was shown in competition but we’ll see, because even Lars von Trier’s “Antichrist” is a contender despite offending and angering many who watched it.
Cannes 2009 Starts Today
No animated pic has ever opened Cannes Film Festival before but at the opening ceremony of the 62nd edition of the fest on May 13, 2009 animated 3D comedy “Up” directed by Pete Docter will have its world premiere.
At the press screening this morning in Cannes, fest chief Thierry Fremaux stood on stage with a small digital camera to welcome critics and journalists and snap a photo of everyone wearing their 3-D glasses.
“The thing I’m looking forward to the most is seeing that great image of all these people tonight in their tuxedos, bow ties and gowns, wearing 3-D glasses in that big theater. That’s going to be a good picture,” Pixar Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter joked at a news conference.
“We’ve always made our films in 3-D, but we’ve just shown them in 2-D,” Lasseter proclaimed during a post-screening press conference today in Cannes. “ All our films will be made in 3-D in the future,” Lasseter added.
The 10th feature by Disney’s Pixar studios was warmly clapped at its press screening and it should get a similar welcome at the formal ceremony that opens the festival in the evening.
The red carpet was unfurled and the 3-D glasses were at hand as the 62nd Cannes Film Festival opened Wednesday. A host of celebrities have jetted in to the French Riviera for the gala opening of this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Stars including Brad Pitt, Quentin Tarantino, Penelope Cruz and Johnny Depp are expected to attend while promoting their latest films.
Cannes 2008 Winners
As we already wrote “Entre les Murs” (”The Class“) directed by Laurent Cantet won the Golden Palm (Palme d’Or) at 2008 Cannes Film festival.Other winners included Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, two-time Palme d’Or recipients, who took the screenplay award for “The Silence of Lorna.”
Sandra Corveloni, who played a working-class mother in São Paulo in Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas’s “Linha de Passe,” won the best actress award.
Benicio Del Toro, who played the title in Steven Soderbergh’s “Che” won the prize for best actor.
The directing award went to Nuri Bilge Ceylan for “Three Monkeys,” a film about a disintegrating Turkish family.
Both the jury prize and the grand prix went to Italian films:
-the jury prize to “Il Divo,” Paolo Sorrentino’s highly stylized portrait of former Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti
-and the grand prix to Matteo Garrone’s “Gomorrah,” a brutally realistic examination of organized crime in Naples.
The Caméra d’Or for best first feature went to Steve McQueen’s “Hunger,” (Un Certain Regard) which unsparingly depicts the protests of imprisoned IRA militants in the 1980s.
The jury conferred two special prizes for Catherine Deneuve for ”Un Conte De Noel” and Clint Eastwood for ”The Exchange.”
In Competition
Un Certain Regard Prize
”Tulpan” by Sergey Dvortsevoy
Jury Prize
“Tokyo Sonata” by Kurosawa Kiyoshi
Heart Throb Jury Prize
”Wolke 9” by Andreas Drese
The Knockout of Un Certain Regard
”Tyson” by James Toback
Prize of Hope
”Johnny Mad Dog” by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire
Un Certain Regard
American distributors had, by the end of the festival, bought some of the most interesting films in and out of competition.
Palme d’Or – Laurent Cantet’s ‘Entres Les Murs’ / ‘The Class’
“Entre les Murs” (”The Class“), based on a best-selling autobiographical novel by François Begaudeau, who plays the main character is brought alive by the performances of the non-professional actors playing the students. The film follows a year in the life of a French schoolteacher working in a tough multi-cultural section of Paris.
Sean Penn, the president of the jury, said that the award for “The Class” was one of two unanimous verdicts. The other was the prize for best actor, given to Benicio Del Toro, who played the title in Steven Soderbergh’s “Che.”
Directed and co-written by Laurent Cantet (Human Resources’, Time Out), the film is set in a school in the Parisian suburbs; indeed, with the exception of a handful of brief scenes shot in the staff room, the corridors, and the playground, the entire movie is set in one classroom, where François (François Begaudau), a French teacher of some four years standing, attempts to instill some sort of discipline and enthusiasm for learning into a motley, multicultural group of 13- and 14-year-olds. Continue Reading…
