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  • Cannes: French director’s film on Tamil Tigers wins Palme D’Or

    Cannes: French director’s film on Tamil Tigers wins Palme D’Or

    NEW DELHI: While Dheepan by French director Jacques Audiard won the Palme D’Or for the best film, renowned filmmaker Agn?s Varda received the highest distinction of an honorary Palme D’Or at the conclusion of the 68th Cannes International Film Festival in France.

     

    The director and all-rounder swells the ranks of the exceptional award winners that include great names such as Woody Allen (2002), Manoel de Oliveira (2008), Clint Eastwood (2009), and Bernardo Bertolucci (2011).

     

    The film, which won the top award is a moving drama dealing with three Tamil Tigers – a former soldier, a young woman and a child – who pose as a family to escape the civil war in Sri Lanka and get French asylum. It will be released in the US by IFC/Sundance Selects.

     

    The director is also known for earlier films like A Prophet and Rust and Bone.

     

    The awards were announced by the jury headed by Joel and Ethan Coen, and also included directors Guillermo del Toro and Xavier Dolan, actor Jake Gyllenhaal, actresses Sienna Miller, Sophie Marceau and Rossy de Palma and composer Rokia Traore.

     

    The Best Actor award went to Vincent Lindon in La Loi Du Marché (The Measure of a Man) by Stéphane Brizé while the Actress awards were shared by Emmanuelle Bercot in Mon Roi by Ma?wenn, and Rooney Mara in Carol by Todd Haynes.

     

    The second-place award, the Grand Prix, went to first-time director Laszlo Nemes’ harrowing Holocaust drama Son of Saul, while the third-place Jury Award went to Yorgos Lanthimos’ surreal The Lobster.

     

    Hou Hsiao-Hsien was named the festival’s best director for his lavish martial arts epic The Assassin.

     

    The Best Screenplay award was given to writer-director Michel Franco for Chronic, the Camera d’Or to La Tierra Y La Sombra (Land and Shade) by César Augusto Acevedo. 

     

    The Short Film Palme D’Or was given to Waves ’98 by Ely Dagher from Lebanon.

     

    Eight of the 19 films in the main competition took home awards. Favourites, which failed to make include Matteo Garrone’s twisted fairy tale compilation Tale of Tales; Justin Kurzel’s MacBeth, with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard; Joachim Trier’s Louder Than Bombs with Jesse Eisenberg and Isabelle Huppert.

     

    The winners:

     

    Palme d’Or: Dheepan, Jacques Audiard

    Grand Prix: Son of Saul, Laszlo Nemes

    Prix du Jury: The Lobster, Yorgos Lanthimos

    Best Director: The Assassin, Hou Hsiao-Hsien

    Best Screenplay: Chronic, Michel Franco

    Camera d’Or (Best First Feature): La Tierra y la Sombra (Land and Shade), Cesar Augusto Acevedo

    Best Actor: Vincent Lindon, The Measure of a Man

    Best Actress: (tie) Rooney Mara, Carol, and Emmanuelle Bercot, Mon Roi

    Palme d’Or, Short Film: Waves 98, Ely Dagher

     

    Meanwhile, the Cinéfondation and Short Films Jury headed by Abderrahmane Sissako awarded the 2015 Cinéfondation Prize Share by Pippa Bianco of AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women, USA. The Second Prize went to Locas Perdidas directed by Ignacio Juricic Merillan from Carrera de Cine y TV Universidad de Chile, Chile; and the third prize jointly went to The Return Of Erkin directed by Maria Guskova from High Courses for Scriptwriters and Film Directors, Russia, and Victor XX directed by Ian Gamdo Lopez from ESCAC, Spain.

     

    The Cinéfondation Selection consisted of 18 student films, selected from among 593 entries from 381 film schools around the world.

     

    The first prize winner received €15,000, with €11,250 going to the second and €7,500 to the third.

  • Jane Campion to lead the 2014 Cannes Film Festival jury

    Jane Campion to lead the 2014 Cannes Film Festival jury

    MUMBAI: Jane Campion, a New Zealand native writer, producer and director, has been selected to lead the jury at the next Festival de Cannes that takes place from 14 to 25 May, 2014. Campion steps into the shoes of Steven Spielberg, who presided over the jury last year. Interestingly, Campion is in fact the only female director to have won the Palme D’or, for The Piano in 1993, having already garnered the Short Film Palme D’or back in 1986, for Peel – a unique double success story in the history of the Festival de Cannes.

     

    “Since I first went to Cannes with my short films in 1986, I have had the opportunity to see the festival from many sides and my admiration for this Queen of film festivals has only grown larger. At the Cannes Film Festival they manage to combine and celebrate the glamour of the industry, the stars, the parties, the beaches, the business, while rigorously maintaining the festival’s seriousness about the Art and excellence of new world cinema,” said Campion in a press release.

     

    “It is this world wide inclusiveness and passion for film at the heart of the festival which makes the importance of the Cannes Film Festival indisputable,” Campion further adds. “It is a mythical and exciting festival where amazing things can happen, actors are discovered, films are financed careers are made, I know this because that is what happened to me! I am truly honoured to join with the Cannes Film Festival as President of the in Competition features for 2014,” concludes Campion. “In fact I can’t wait.”

     

    Born in a family of artists, Jane Campion studied anthropology, then art, before turning to film, where her rise to success was meteoric. In the wake of her acclaimed short films, which culminated in a Palme D’or, she captivated international critics with Sweetie (1989), her first feature film, selected In Competition at the Festival de Cannes. After An Angel At My Table (1990), inspired by the works of Janet Frame, in which the theme of an extraordinary woman engaged in the painful quest to assert her identity had already been sketched out, she returned to competition in Cannes in 1993 with The Piano, which won the Palme D’or as well as Best Actress prize for Holly Hunter, starring opposite the unforgettable Harvey Keitel. A few months later, Campion, was nominated for Best Director and Best Screenplay at the Oscars and she picked up the award for the best Screenplay.

     

    Her subsequent works have been Portrait of a Lady in 1996 with Nicole Kidman, Holy Smoke in 1999 with Kate Winslet, and In the Cut (2003) with Meg Ryan. Her last film for cinema, Bright Star, an original vision and fictionalised biography of the poet Keats and his muse, was presented In Competition at Cannes, in 2009.

     

    Campion recently won the remarkable public and critical acclaim with the Sundance Channel Original Series, Top of the Lake, in which she develops her favorite themes, portraying the splendor of nature, the outpouring of romantic passion and the revolt of women against societies dominated by violence and machismo.