Sunday 25th May 2008

The official Jury of this 61st Fesival de Cannes, présided over by Sean Penn, revealed the Prize winners during the closing Ceremony.  Édouard Baer hosted Robert de Niro on the stage of the Grand Théâtre Lumière to award the Palme d'or to the best film among the 22 in Competition.

Barry Levinson's closing film What Just Happened? starring Robert De Niro, Sean Penn and Bruce Willis, was screened at the end of the ceremony.

IN COMPETTION - FEATURE FILMS

Palme d'Or
ENTRE LES MURS de / by Laurent Cantet

Grand Prix
GOMORRA de / by Matteo Garrone

Prize of the 61st Festival de Cannes ex-aequo
Catherine Deneuve dans / for UN CONTE DE NOËL de / by Arnaud DESPLECHIN
Clint Eastwood pour / for L'ÉCHANGE (The Exchange)

Award for the Best Director
ÜÇ MAYMUN (Three Monkeys / Les Trois Singes) de / by Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Jury Prize
IL DIVO de / by Paolo Sorrentino

Prix d'interprétation masculine
Benicio Del Toro dans / for CHE de / by Steven SODERBERGH

Best Performance for an Actress
Sandra Corveloni dans / for LINHA DE PASSE de / by Walter SALLES, Daniela THOMAS

Award for the Best Screenplay
LE SILENCE DE LORNA de / by Jean-Pierre et Luc DARDENNE

IN COMPETTION - SHORT FILMS

Palme d'Or
MEGATRON de / by Marian Crisan

Jury Prize
JERRYCAN de / by Julius Avery

CAMERA D'OR

HUNGER de / by Steve McQueen (Un Certain Regard)

Mention Spéciale Caméra d'Or
VSE UMRUT A JA OSTANUS (Ils mourront tous sauf moi) de / by Valeria Gaï GUERMANIKA (Semaine Internationale de la Critique)

UN CERTAIN REGARD

Un Certain Regard Prize
TULPAN de / by Sergey Dvortsevoy

Jury Prize
TOKYO SONATA de / by Kurosawa Kiyoshi

Heart Throb Jury Prize
WOLKE 9 de / by Andreas Drese

The Knockout of Un Certain Regard
TYSON de / by James Toback

Prize of Hope
JOHNNY MAD DOG de / by Jean-Stéphane SAUVAIRE

CINEFONDATION

First Cinéfondation Prize
HIMNON (Hymne) de / by Elad Keidan (The Sam Spiegel Film and TV School, Israël)

Second Cinéfondation Prize
FORBACH de / by Claire Burger (La fémis, France)

Third Cinéfondation Prize
STOP de / by Park Jae-ok (The Korean Academy of Film Arts, Corée du Sud)
KESTOMERKITSIJÄT (Signalisation des routes) de / by Juho Kuosmanen (University of Art and Design Helsinki, Finlande) Back Print

Sunday 18th May 2008

Steven Spielberg has not walked the red carpet since The Color Purple was selected out of Competition 22 years ago. He is back on the Croisette with the long-awaited Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The press room was packed. Representing the film were Spielberg, producer Georges Lucas, and actors Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Jim Broadbent, Harrison Ford, John Hurt, Shia Labeouf and Ray Winstone. Some highlights.

"We created Indiana Jones, but it belongs to the world", says Steven Spielberg. "And now we're the custodians. Our job really is to serve up a huge helping not only of what Indiana Jones means to audiences who grew up with it, but to introduce the character to those who haven't. This new film is for the fans. " Executive producer and co-story writer George Lucas continues, "The style is the same, the humor is the same. Everything feels the same. But we've also been able to build on it. The relationships we have on the set and the ones on the screen are stronger and better and more fun than they've ever been."

Harrison Ford on incarnating Indiana Jones:
"The pleasure of playing this character is his wit and his intelligence and the situations that the filmmakers put him in, and watching him twist in the wind and then work himself out of these situations… The only measure of Indiana Jones is what he comes up against, so the villains, and they are all over the place here, really provide him the possibility to exceed expectations."

Steven Spielberg on the setting:
"The pressure that was put on me to set the film during the Cold War was the fact that 19 years had elapsed, and if you did the math, we were no longer in the late 30s, we were in the area of 1957 and the era of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. That's what motivated us to create these heroes and these villains in a period that would be certainly relevant to those kind of geopolitics."

Steven Spielberg on digital or not digital:
"The film is being released digitally on a lot of screens, about 300. Making a film digitally and releasing a film in the same digital process gives a beautiful image. It creates an extraordinarily clean, sharp image, but making a film on celluloid - as I'd like to do with all of my pictures –then transferring, releasing it, and projecting it digitally is a very inferior image. So the decision to go out to a vast number of motion picture theatres was a simple decision for me to make. But digital cinema is inevitable, it's right around the corner and even someday I will have to convert, but right now I love film."

Steven Spielberg on whether the saga will continue:
"Only if you want more of them. That's the reason we made this Indiana Jones, because we had so many people over the years come up to us - George, and Harrison and myself – and basically say 'when is another one coming out?' The only two movies that anybody ever asks me 'is there going to be another one?' are ET and Indiana Jones."

Thursday 15th May 2008

The festival opened with a flying start this week with Fernando Meirelles's In-competition screening of BLINDNESS in the presence of director Fernando Meirelles and actors Danny Glover, Julianne Moore, and Gael García Bernal. On the Palace stage, Master of Ceremonies Edouard Baer graciously welcomed its President, actor-director Sean Penn and the Jury, Jeanne Balibar, Alexandra Maria Lara, Natalie Portman, Marjane Satrapi, Rachid Bouchareb, Sergio Castellitto, Alfonso Cuarón, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

"I'm very happy to be here with you," said Sean Penn, remarking that "the Cannes Festival has always selected great films and great actors." "We'll forward love letters to the distributors, who don't get prizes for their films, to encourage them to continue supporting cinema, in all its diversity," he continued.

A number of celebrities were spotted on the red-carpeted steps to the palace, including Un Certain Regard jury president Fatih Akin, Claude Lelouch, and Faye Dunaway. Viviane Reding, the European Commissioner for Information Society and Media, also attended the ceremony. For the fourth consecutive year, the Palace façade displayed a portrait of Ingrid Betancourt, who has been held hostage by Colombian FARC rebels since February 2003.

The audience in the Salle Lumière was then treated to a preview featuring highlights from the films being presented in competition, along with a special appearance by American singer-guitarist Richie Havens. Mr. Havens gave a vibrant rendition of his song Freedom, with which he opened the Woodstock Festival in 1969. The performance brought tears to Jury President Sean Penn's eyes. The ceremony concluded with an official declaration of the event's opening by director Claude Lanzmann, whose feature films Elise, or Real Life, Sobibor, and Israel, Why have premiered here in Cannes. In his remarks, he paid homage to "the intelligence and talent of the Festival organizers, who have broadened the cultural scope of this unique and incomparable event on the planet of cinema," while wondering bemusedly about the kinship between his own films and those of a director like Quentin Tarantino.

Full details of his year's line up at the 61st Cannes International Film Festival are now running online. The festival opens on Wed 14th May 2008 with Fernando Meirelles's BLINDNESS and runs through to 25th May.

The full line up of films in competiton are:

In Competition
ADORATION directed by Atom EGOYAN
BLINDNESS directed by Fernando MEIRELLES
CHE directed by Steven SODERBERGH
DELTA directed by Kornel MUNDRUCZO
ENTRE LES MURS (THE CLASS) directed by Laurent CANTET
ER SHI SI CHENG JI directed by Zhangke JIA
GOMORRA (GOMORRAH) directed by Matteo GARRONE
IL DIVO directed by Paolo SORRENTINO
L'ÉCHANGE directed by Clint EASTWOOD
LA FRONTIÈRE DE L'AUBE (FRONTIER OF DAWN) directed by Philippe GARREL
LA MUJER SIN CABEZA (THE HEADLESS WOMAN) directed by Lucrecia MARTEL
LE SILENCE DE LORNA (LORNA'S SILENCE) directed by Jean-Pierre et Luc DARDENNE
LEONERA directed by Pablo TRAPERO
LINHA DE PASSE directed by Walter SALLES, Daniela THOMAS
MY MAGIC directed by Eric KHOO
PALERMO SHOOTING (PALERMO SHOOTING) directed by Wim WENDERS
SERBIS directed by Brillante MENDOZA
SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK directed by Charlie KAUFMAN
TWO LOVERS directed by James GRAY
ÜÇ MAYMUN (THREE MONKEYS) directed by Nuri Bilge CEYLAN
UN CONTE DE NOËL (A CHRISTMAS TALE) directed by Arnaud DESPLECHIN
WALTZ WITH BASHIR directed by Ari FOLMAN

Out of Competition

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL directed by Steven SPIELBERG
KUNG FU PANDA directed by Mark OSBORNE, John STEVENSON
MARADONA BY KUSTURICA directed by Emir KUSTURICA
SURVEILLANCE directed by Jennifer LYNCH
THE CHASER directed by Hong-Jin NA
THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD directed by Jee-woon KIM
VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA directed by Woody ALLEN
WHAT JUST HAPPENED? directed by Barry LEVINSON

President of the jury
Sean PENN, Director

Members of the jury
Jeanne BALIBAR,Actress
Rachid BOUCHAREB,Director
Sergio CASTELLITTO,Actor
Alfonso CUARON,Director
Alexandra Maria LARA,Actress
Natalie PORTMAN,Actress
Marjane SATRAPI,Author, Director
Apichatpong WEERASETHAKUL,Director