Cannes 2009: Best Director Favorites

Best Director
Pedro Almodóvar for Broken Embraces
Jacques Audiard for A Prophet
Jane Campion for Bright Star
Michael Haneke for The White Ribbon
Alain Resnais for Wild Grass
 
Photos: Courtesy Festival de Cannes
 

Cannes 2009: Palme d’Or Favorites

Palme d’Or 2009, Grand Prix, Special Jury Prize:
Alain Resnais‘ romantic fantasy Wild Grass (adapted by Alex Reval and Laurent Herbiet from Christian Gailly’s novel), about a man who becomes intrigued by a younger woman
Jacques Audiard’s tough prison drama A Prophet (written by Audiard, Thomas Bidegain, Abdel Raouf Dafri, and Nicolas Peufaillit)
Writer-director Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, about a northern German community enmeshed in a series of nasty events right before the beginning of World War I
Writer-director Jane Campion’s Bright Star, about the doomed love affair between British poet John Keats and his neighbor, Fanny Brawne
 
Photos: Courtesy Festival de Cannes
 

Cannes 2009: Michael Haneke’s THE WHITE RIBBON

 
Dave Calhoun in Time Out London, via David Hudson’s The Daily:
"For quite some time at the beginning of Michael Haneke’s latest film, which is a two-and-a-half hour parable of political and social ideas set entirely in a north German village in 1913 and 1914, you wonder what you’re watching, how its disparate parts hang together and what it all might mean. More than ever, the playful, challenging, sometimes shocking director of Hidden, Funny Games and Time of the Wolf solidly resists answering the ‘what’s it all about?’ question and makes you work hard to make sense of what you’re seeing. As in Code Unknown, he resists focusing on one story or [...]