CANNES - A WRAP

Austrian director Michael Haneke's AMOUR (Love), in French, was awarded the top prize, the Golden Palm (Palme d'Or), for Best Motion Picture Feature at the 65th Cannes International Film Festival, Sunday. He received a Palme d'Or in 2009 for THE WHITE RIBBON in German and Italian. He is only the seventh director to take the top prize twice.

Riva in AMOUR

AMOUR was filmed entirely in Paris, and stars beloved French actors Jean-Louis Trintignant, 81, and Emmanuelle Riva, 85, as an elderly couple still very much in love, and Isabelle Huppert. It is 180 degrees from most of Haneke's movies, as he stated, ". . . a film’s style should match its subject matter, not its director, and 'this film is about love.'"

Saturday, we posted on our "Mimi at the Movies" Facebook page: "We choose Michael Haneke's AMOUR (Love), to capture the Palme d'Or at Cannes tomorrow."  So far, we are two for two this year, the Best Motion Picture Oscar (The Artist) and the Cannes winner!

CHILDREN OF SARAJEVO

THE CANNES UN CERTAIN REGARD 2012 section presented 20 films directed by 26 directors hailing from 17 different countries. Four of the works were first films.

Presided over by Tim ROTH (actor, director), the Jury was comprised of Leïla BEKHTI (actress), Sylvie PRAS (head of cinema - Centre Pompidou Paris, artistic director - La Rochelle Festival), Tonie MARSHALL (director, producer) and Luciano MONTEAGUDO (critic - Pagina/12 - Buenos Aires). According to Roth, “This was an extraordinarily strong group of films and our deliberations were passionate. The film makers never once failed us! Incredible!”

TOP PRIZE OF UN CERTAIN REGARD
AFTER LUCIA (original title, DESPUÉS DE LUCIA0) by Michel FRANCO, a Mexican/French co-production in Spanish. It is about teenage bullying in Mexico.

SPECIAL JURY PRIZE
LE GRAND SOIR (The Great Evening) by Benoît DELÉPINE and Gustave KERVERN. A French production in French.

SPECIAL DISTINCTION OF THE JURY
CHILDREN OF SARAJEVO (original title, DJECA) written and directed by  Bosnian--Herzegovinian filmmaker Aida BEGIC, telling the story of two orphaned siblings struggling to survive during the Bosnian War. Congratulations to Aida, Kevin Spacey and all the gang at the upcoming Sarajevo Film Festival! I will be following.

Writer/Director/Producer Aida Begic

 

AWARD FOR BEST ACTRESS (Shared)
Suzanne CLÉMENT for her performance in LAURENCE ANYWAYS directed by Xavier DOLAN, and Emilie DEQUENNE for her performance in À PERDRE LA RAISON (Reason to Lose) directed by Joachim LAFOSSE.

AWARD FOR BEST ACTOR
Mads MIKKELSEN in JAGTEN (The Hunt) directed by Thomas VINTERBERG.

GRAND PRIX
REALITY directed by Matteo GARRONE.

BEST DIRECTOR
Carlos REYGADAS for POST TENEBRAS LUX (title means “light after the darkness”).

BEST SCREENPLAY
Cristian MUNGIU for DUPÃ DEALURI (Beyond The Hills).

JURY PRIZE: THE ANGELS' SHARE directed by Ken LOACH.

Caméra d'Or for Best First Film -  BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD directed by Benh ZEITLIN.

SHORT FILMS
Palme d'Or - SESSIZ-BE DENG (Silent) directed by L. Rezan YESILBAS.

OTHER AWARDS:  NO, starring Gael García Bernal, a Chilean production in Spanish, took Top Prize at the Directors' Fortnight; FIPRESCI Prizes (Critics Awards) went to BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD (USA) filmed in New Orleans, and IN THE FOG, a Latvian production in Russian.

It must be noted that, despite a stronger showing of American movies at Cannes this year, U.S. films were shut out when it came to the awards, except for BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, which won two awards.

SOME FEATURE MOTION PICTURES THAT RECEIVED FAVORABLE ATTENTION AT THE FESTIVAL:

1. Leos Carax's HOLY MOTORS, labeled bizarre by some. Carax is French. From IMDb Trivia: His professional name, Leos Carax, is an anagram of his first and middle names, "Alex Oscar."

2. A big standing ovation and favorable buzz at Cannes following David Cronberg's COSMOPOLIS premiere with Robert Pattinson and Cronenberg in attendance. At this festival, Pattenson was praised for his acting. The movie features French actress Juliette Binoche, who rose to movie stardom after appearing in Philip Kaufman's  critically acclaimed, THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS  OF BEING.

3. Kaufman's latest, HEMINGWAY AND GELLHORN, received some words of warmth at the festival as well. It is an HBO movie, starring Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen. The drama is centered on the romance between Ernest Hemingway and WWII correspondent Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway's inspiration for, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and the only woman who ever asked for a divorce from the writer. This one is definitely on my "must see" list.

Kidman and Owen as Gellhorn and Hemingway

LINKS:

  Cannes Festival Home in English

  Movie reviews plus video

Cannes Festival is ready to roll

Actress, Isabelle Huppert

The 62nd Cannes Film Festival (CFF) will open this week, 13 May, and run through 24 May 2009. The films are selected as well as the juries, and the French know how to throw a party.


JURYIES
1. FEATURE FILM COMPETITION - French actress Isabelle Huppert, President, assisted by Asia Argento (Actress, Director, Screenwriter- Italy) Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Director, Screenwriter, Actor - Turkey) Lee Chang-Dong (Director, Writer, Screenwriter - South Korea), James Gray (Director, Screenwriter – United States), Hanif Kureishi (Writer, Screenwriter – United Kingdom), Shu Qi (Actress - Taiwan), Robin Wright Penn (Actress - United States), and Sharmila Tagore III ( Actress- India). Will be presented on stage during the closing ceremony on May 24th.

2. CAMERA d'OR - The Camera d’or, created in 1978, honors the best first film chosen in the Official Selection, the Critics’ Week or the Director’s Fortnight. This year, twenty first films will compete for this prize which will be presented on stage during the closing ceremony on May 24th.

French actor Roschdy Zem, President. Other members: Diane Baratier (cinematographer), Olivier Chiavassa (Federation of Film Technicians), Sandrine Ray (director), Charles Tesson (Critics’ Syndicate), and Edouard Waintrop (Fribourg Film Festival, Switzerland).

3. UN CERTAIN REGARD - The opening film of this prestigious Festival program is NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT THE PERSIAN CATS, Thursday, 14 May. The director is Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi.

Italian screenwriter and director Paolo Sorrentino, awarded the Jury Prize in 2008 for IL DIVO, will preside over: Julie Gayet (actress, France), Piers Handling (director of the Toronto Festival, Canada), Uma Da Cunha (journalist and festival programmer, India) and Marit Kapla (journalist, Göteborg Festival, Sweden).

SPECIAL EVENTS
1. Filmmaker Martin Scorsese is the honorary President of Cannes Classics 2009, a section established in 2004 to accompany the contemporary films of the Official Selection with a program of restored and rediscovered films, to be released theatrically or on DVD.

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's masterpiece, THE RED SHOES (UK, 1948), tops the program. It will be presented in the Debussy Theater with Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker-Powell in attendance.

The movie has been restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive in association with The British Film Institute, The Film Foundation, ITV Global Entertainment Ltd., and Janus Films, with funding provided by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (Golden Globes), The Film Foundation, and the Louis B. Mayer Foundation.

2. The Cinema Masterclass of the Dardenne Brothers - Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne will give the Cinema Masterclass at the 62nd Festival, Tuesday, 19 May. They won their first Palme d'or for ROSETTA in 1999. Like Francis Coppola, Emir Kusturica, Billie August and Shohei Imamura before, they have won more than one Palme d'or. They won their second in 2005 for THE CHILD, and followed with another for Best Screenplay in 2008's LORNA'S SILENCE.

As Martin Scorcese, Quentin Tarantino, Nanni Moretti and Wong Kar-Wai have done at previous Festivals, they will talk with Michel Ciment about their unusual career, their work at filming and writing together, the meaning that they give to their creation. They will welcome festival-goers, film buffs and journalists at the Buñuel theatre.

See my previous post, "Here Comes Cannes," 26 April.