cannes festival

Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the Palme d’Or winner — whose title translates as “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” — is about a man who is dying of kidney failure in the country and is joined by the ghost of his dead wife and by his missing son.

The prize for best director went to Mathieu Amalric for “Tournee” (“On Tour”), which portrayed a team of fleshy neo- burlesque dancers on the road in France.
Weerasethakul has gained strong recognition at film festivals around the world over the years, wining the 2004 jury prize in Cannes for Tropical Malady about gay lovers and a trek to find a metamorphosed tiger.

Two years earlier, he gained the festival’s Un Certain Regard section’s top prize for Blissfully Yours.

This year’s race for the coveted Palme d’Or came down to less than a handful films, with many festival goers considering this year’s programme to be somewhat patchy.

But then the motion-picture business is only slowly emerging from the financial crisis that swept the global economy over the last more than two years.

The Cannes’ jury headed up by US director Tim Burton awarded the festival’s second prize, the Grand Prix, to French director Xavier Beauvois for his movie Des Hommes et des Dieux (Of Gods and Men).

The 43-year-old Beauvois’ movie is a compelling story about a group of monks living in Algeria during a period of rising Islamic fundamentalist violence.

It is the third consecutive year that a French director has won one of the festival’s top awards.
Here is a full list of winners:

Palme d’Or (Golden Palm): “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” by Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand)
Grand Prize: “Of Gods and Men” by Xavier Beauvois (France)

Jury Prize: “A Screaming Man” by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (Chad)

Best Director: Mathieu Amalric for “On Tour” (France)

Best Actor: Javier Bardem, “Biutiful” (Mexico) and Elio Germano, “La Nostra Vita” (Italy)

Best Actress: Juliette Binoche, “Certified Copy” (Iran)

Best Screenplay: Lee Chang-Dong, “Poetry” (Korea)

Camera d’Or (first-time director): “Ano Bisiesto”