CANNES, France, (Reuters) – Austrian director Michael Haneke won the Palme d’Or (Golden Palm) for best picture at the Cannes film festival yesterday for “The White Ribbon”, an eerie, black-and-white exploration of the roots of Nazi terror.
Haneke’s first top prize at the world’s biggest film festival is likely to prove popular among the thousands of critics and journalists in the French Riviera resort for the 12-day movie marathon.
The White Ribbon, set in a village in northern Germany, follows a series of sinister crimes for which a group of children, cruelly disciplined by their parents, emerge as the prime suspects.
“My wife sometimes ask me a very female question — ‘Are you happy?” the 67-year-old told the closing awards ceremony.
“It’s very difficult to reply, I find, because happiness is a rare thing, but now I can say, this is a moment in my life when I am really happy.” France’s Charlotte Gainsbourg won the best actress award for her courageous performance in Lars von Trier’s “Antichrist”, while the best actor award went to Austria’s Christoph Waltz for his flamboyant performance as an SS officer in Quentin Tarantino’s World War Two caper “Inglourious Basterds”.
The best director award went to Filipino Brillante Mendoza, who presented “Kinatay” in the festival.
Mei Feng, the writer on Chinese director Lou Ye’s “Spring Fever”, picked up the best screenplay award.
