The Cannes Festival Blog

Next Cannes Film Festival: 11-22 May 2011
The Cannes Festival Blog
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Cannes Festival 2008: Golden Palm and other Awards

Cannes Film Festival 2008
  • Palme d'Or (Golden Palm): "The Class," Laurent Cantet (France). - Review by Variety
  • Grand Prize: "Gomorrah," Matteo Garrone (Italy).
  • Jury Prize: "Il Divo," Paolo Sorrentino (Italy).
  • Special 61st Anniversary Prizes: Catherine Deneuve (France) and Clint Eastwood (United States).
  • Best Director: "Three Monkeys," Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey).
  • Best Actor: Benicio Del Toro, "Che" (United States).
  • Best Actress: Sandra Corveloni, "Linha de Passe" (Brazil).
  • Best Screenplay: "Lorna's Silence," Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (Belgium).
  • Golden Camera (first-time director): "Hunger," Steve McQueen (Britain).
  • Best short film: "Megatron," Marian Crisan (Romania)
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Chelsea Hotel - Leonard Cohen, Nico

Cannes Film Festival 2008Tribute to "Chelsea on the Rocks" movie - Chelsea Hotel soon going to "T-Shirt only" existence like CBGBs:





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Cannes Festival 2008 Films: Getting Real

Cannes Film Festival 2008A commentary in yesterdays local newspaper "Nice Matin" complained about the lack of films in the festival this year that were based on actual scriptwriting. It observed that storytelling and human imagination seem to have taken the backseat in favor of turning "real life" material into a movie. Looking at the films that were shown in the last two weeks, there is a lot of truth in this - there was what might be called a "portrait of your favorite fallen star" section with the films on Mike Tyson, Diego Maradona and Che. The Chelsea Hotel got portrayed (another falling star, if you want). The Clint Eastwood movie is based on an actual story - and the list goes on.

The Cannes Film Festival often being an indication of bigger trends in the movie industry (witness their focus on Bollywood a few years back right before Indian movies became popular world-wide), this could be the sign of another trend: art movies turning into an elaborate form of Reality TV, with less emphasis on scriptwriting, following the current move towards "real" (and also "cheap") content in other media (television, blogs).