Apichatpong Weerasethakul Takes the Palme d'Or

Tim Burton and the jury awarded Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives the Palme d'Or at Cannes today, marking the first Palme d'Or for the director and for Thailand. Weerasethakul won the Jury Prize in 2004 for Tropical Malady (which still feels like a giant oversight by Quentin Tarantino and his jury that year, who gave the Palme d'Or to Fahrenheit 9/11) and the Un Certain Regard Award in 2002 for Blissfully Yours. You can watch A Letter to Uncle Boonmee, the director's fantastic 17-minute short which he expanded into the feature, on MUBI. In his fourth outing as a feature director, Mathieu Amalric took home the Best Director prize for Tournée [On Tour]. In a rare tie, Javier Bardem and Elio Germano were named the Best Actors for Biutiful and La nostra vita [Our Life] respectively, and Juliette Binoche won her first Best Actress prize at Cannes this year for Abbas Kiarostami's Copie conforme [Certified Copy]. Rounding out the rest of the awards: Lee Chang-dong won Best Screenplay for Poetry, Xavier Beauvois' Des hommes et des dieux [Of Gods and Men] was awarded the Grand Prix and Michael Rowe's Año bisiesto [Leap Year] won the Caméra d'Or (for best first film). Full awards below:

Palme d'Or: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, d. Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand/France/Germany/Spain/United Kingdom
Grand prix: Des hommes et des dieux [Of Gods and Men], d. Xavier Beauvois, France

Prix du jury: Un homme qui crie [A Screaming Man], d. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, France/Chad
Prix de la mise en scène [Best Director]: Mathieu Amalric - Tournée [On Tour]
Prix d'interprétation féminine [Best Actress]: Juliette Binoche - Copie conforme [Certified Copy]
Prix d'interprétation masculine [Best Actor]: (tie) Javier Bardem - Biutiful; Elio Germano - La nosta vita [Our Life]
Prix du scénario [Best Screenplay]: Lee Chang-dong - Poetry
Caméra d'Or: Año bisiesto [Leap Year], d. Michael Rowe, Mexico

Acquisition Update, 17 December: Rivette and Co.

Cinema Guild announced today that they will be handling the US release of Jacques Rivette's latest Around a Small Mountain [36 vues vues du Pic Saint-Loup], which stars Jane Birkin, Sergio Castellitto and Jacques Bonnaffé, set for a spring '10. This marks Cinema Guild's third exciting acquisition in the past month following Maren Ade's Everyone Else and Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor's Sweetgrass.

Film Movement also announced today that they've picked up Phillippe Lioret's Welcome, which stars Vincent Lindon. The film won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the 2009 Berlinale, as well as the Best Screenplay prize at the Gijón International Film Festival.

And thanks to Keaton Kail from IFC Films' list on The Auteurs, it looks as though IFC has nabbed a number of films for 2010, aside from the ones we already knew about, like Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank, Marco Bellocchio's Vincere, François Ozon's Ricky and Kim Ji-woon's The Good, the Bad, the Weird. The titles, including Secret Sunshine which has been in distribution limbo for almost three years, are below:

- Bellamy, 2009, d. Claude Chabrol, France, w. Gérard Depardieu, Clovis Cornillac, Jacques Gamblin
- Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee, 2009, d. Shane Meadows, UK, w. Paddy Considine
- Leaving [Partir], 2009, d. Catherine Corsini, France, w. Kristin Scott Thomas, Sergi López
- My Enemy's Enemy, 2007, d. Kevin Macdonald, France/UK (originally a Weinstein title that was canceled shortly after its DVD was announced)
- Secret Sunshine, 2007, d. Lee Chang-dong, South Korea, w. Jeon Do-yeon
- Sounds Like Teen Spirit, 2008, d. Jamie Jay Johnson, UK
- The Time That Remains, 2009, d. Elia Suleiman, France/UK/Italy/Belgium
- Vengeance, 2009, d. Johnnie To, France/Hong Kong, w. Johnny Hallyday, Sylvie Testud, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Simon Yam