Cannes Festival Winners

WINNERS

PALME D'OR 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, Cristian Mungiu

Grand Prix The Mourning Forest, Naomi Kawase

Jury Prize TIE Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi - Vincent Paronnaud and Silent Light, Carlos Reygadas

Best Director Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Best Actor Konstantin Lavronenko, The Banishment

Best Actress Do-yeon Jeon, Secret Sunshine

Best Screenplay Fatih Akin, The Edge of Heaven

Special Prize for the 60th Anniversary Gus Van Sant, for his career

What can I say? The Best Actor prize was a complete surprise. I thought that either Javier Bardem or Mathieu Amalric would win. And the Coens No Country didn't win anything. Very strange. But I think that violent films don't do well with Cannes jurors. Last year Pan's Labyrinth went home empty handed and the year before that ditto A History of Violence.

As for the winners, Diving Bell will be released in the US by Miramax and Four Months will have a limited release with IFC Films First Take. As for the rest of the winners, your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps the jury will explain their picks at a press conference.

Some of these small films really do need a push so perhaps that is why the jury chose to honor them because otherwise most of us would never hear about them.