2006 Cannes Festival Winners May 29, 2006
Posted by TheCasualCritic in movie talk
The 2006 edition of the Cannes festival announced its winners on Sunday. The Palme D'Or went to Ken Loach's international co-production The Wind that Shakes the Barley, a story about the pain and sacrifices of the Irish independence war which turned, in only a few years, into a an even more painful civil war.
The Grand Prix was awarded to Flanders by Bruno Dumont. Flanders, another movie set in time of war, takes a different approach to its story-telling: in Dumont's own words: The landscapes come first, it is as of there that the story commences. They are a determining element of inspiration.
The direction and screenplay awards went to the hispanic world this year. First off, Alejandro González IÑÁRRITU received the Best Director award for Babel, the third movie in the conceptual trilogy that includes Amores Perros and 21 Grams. "With Babel," explains Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu, "I wanted to explore the contradiction between the impression that the world has become quite small due to all the communication tools which we have, and the feeling that human beings are still incapable of expressing themselves and communicating amongst themselves on a fundamental level."
The Best Screenplay award went to Spanish prodigee Pedro Almodovar (Todo sobre mi madre, La Mala Educacion) for Volver. His new movie is "the story of family, a family of women", but also about a powerful element as Almodovar comments: "This element of which I speak is 'death', not only mine and that of the beings that I love, but the inevitable disappearance of all which is alive. I was never able to accept or understand it. And it provokes a state of anxiety before the ever faster flight of time.". That the movie was about a family of women was obviously apparent to the jury as well since the Best Actress award was bestowed upon the entire female cast of Volver: Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Duenas, Blanca Portillo and Yohana Cobo.
In the same note, the Best Actor award went to the ensemble cast of Indigenes (Days of Glory) a World War II story by Moroccan director Rachid Bouchareb.
The Jury Prize went to Red Road by british director Andrea Arnold while the award Un Certain Regard went to Luxury Car by Chinese director Chao Wang. The movie, explains Wang, "falls within the continuance of the reflections and criticisms already expressed in my first two films (The Orphan of Anyang, Night and Day), on the reality and historic and political allegories of contemporary China. Here, the gap between the rich and poor, the distance which separates people from happiness, the contradictions between the social system inherited from past and the burden of the present are so many problems which I myself, as a full-fledged member of the people, feel all the weight and intensity. That's why it made me decide to shoot the picture."
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