Cannes Diary – 2009 Roundup

Michael Haneke and his Palme d'Or

The Cannes Film Festival is over for another year, the votes are in and the prizes announced. Michael Haneke takes home the Palme d’Or for his allegoric tale of malice in a pre-World War I German village, THE WHITE RIBBON. The HIDDEN director’s first Palme d’Or roundly accepted as a justified winner.

The Grand Prix (or the second prize) went to A PROPHET, the brilliant prison drama from THE BEAT MY HEART SKIPPED director Jacques Audiard, also the best received film by the critics.

Best Director surprised us all and went to Brillante Mendoza for KINATAY, a pretty irredeemable kidnap drama that a few of us gave up on half way through.

Andrea Arnold, for the second time, picks up the Jury Prize for FISH TANK. Charlotte Gainsbourg takes home the Best Actress prize for her spot of genital mutilation in the derided ANTICHRIST, and Christoph Waltz received the Best Actor prize for his portrayal of the Nazi “Jew Hunter” in Tarantino’s INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS.

Yorgos Lanthimos’ Greek drama DOGTOOTH won the top Un Certain Regard prize, with the brilliant POLICE, ADJECTIVE picking up the Jury Prize in the same competition. A special Un Certain Regard prize went to Bahman Ghobadi’s portrait of the underground music scene in contemporary Iran, NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT THE PERSIAN CATS.

Most important of all however, the Picturehouse votes are in and our top ten films of the festival are listed below. 10 Picturehouse programmers and marketeers cover the two week period of the festival and between us we see over 200 films. Each member of the team were invited to submit their top five films of the festival with the number one film earning 5 points down to the number five film earning 1 point. The points are totted up and we have our democratically voted top ten films of Cannes 2009.

Picturehouse Top Ten

1st = A PROPHET (22 points)

1st = POLICE, ADJECTIVE (22 points)

3rd PRECIOUS (21.5 points)

4th = THE WHITE RIBBON (19 points)

4th = INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (19 points)

6th A TOWN CALLED PANIC (13 points)

7th = THE TIME THAT REMAINS (8 points)

7th = LA PIVELLINA (8 points)

9th MILK OF SORROW (7.5 points)

10th POLYTECHNIQUE (6 points)