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No Cannes Best Actor prize, but the Palme d'Or goes to Barley!
28 May 2006 at 03:16 PM | by Melty_Girl
[Note: This was originally published by cillianONLINE, which has been inactive since September 2006.]
Although reviewers who did not adore The Wind That Shakes the Barley singled out Cillian's performance for praise, he was not awarded the Cannes Best Actor prize.
But The Wind That Shakes the Barley took home the top prize, the Palme d'Or, for best picture! All the filmmakers and actors must be proud and excited. Congratulations to Ken Loach, Paul Laverty, Cillian Murphy and everyone involved with making the film! Here's a quote from the Reuters News Service story:
The Golden Palm, the highest cinema award outside the Oscars in the United States, went to one of Britain's most highly respected and socially active film makers, and was a fitting choice for a festival where political pictures stole much of the limelight.
Roger Ebert called the award "a surprise and a delight in about equal measure," and offered this on-the-ground report:
Secrecy surrounding the jury was tight and pre-awards gossip entirely overlooked the Loach film, even though it got strongly positive reviews. When juror Samuel L. Jackson told one insider the jury "was going to kick some butt and surprise everybody," that seemed to mean the apparent front-runner, Pedro Almodovar's Volver, would be overlooked—but no one I talked to predicted the Loach victory.
Always unflinchingly political, yet ultimately optimistic, Ken Loach said when accepting his first Palme d'Or,
Our film is a little step, a very little step, in the British confronting their imperialist history. Maybe if we tell the truth about the past, maybe we tell the truth about the present. (Source: Bloomberg.com.)
Let's hope that this win will impress North American distributors!
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