CANNES FILM FESTIVAL - JURY, CRITICS AGREE ON CANNES WINNER

JURY, CRITICS AGREE ON CANNES WINNER

For a change, the jury at the Cannes Film Festival found itself in agreement with critics as it voted the prestigious Palme d'Or for best film Saturday to the Romanian entry 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. The film tells of a young woman's effort to get an abortion two years before the toppling of Romania's ruthless Communist regime in 1989. The film by director Cristian Mungiu received overwhelmingly favorable reviews when it opened at the beginning of the festival and was quickly bought by IFC for domestic release. Accepting the award from presenter Jane Fonda, Mungiu said that only six months ago he was struggling to find enough money to complete his film. "You don't necessarily need a big budget and big stars to tell a story that everyone will listen to," the 39-year-old director told the crowd. American artist-turned-filmmaker Julian Schnabel, an American working with French actors, won the best directing prize for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a non-fiction account about a writer who was completely paralyzed by a stroke and could communicate only by blinking at letters. Another American, Gus Van Sant, received the special 60th Anniversary Prize for his film Paranoid Park about a teenage skateboarder who accidentally kills a guard. The Grand Prix award -- essentially the second-place trophy for best film -- went to the Japanese film The Mourning Forest, from director Naomi Kawase. Korea's Jeon Do-yeon won the best actress prize for her performance in Secret Sunshine, while the best actor prize went to Russia's Konstantin Lavronenko for The Banishment.

28/05/2007