Moore's Anti-Bush Film Wins Top Cannes Award

Houston Chronicle

CANNES, France — Michael Moore's controversial anti-Bush documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" won the Palme d'Or best film award at the Cannes film festival today.

Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, a scathing attack on the White House, was up against French director Agnes Jaoui's sharp, literate ugly-duckling tale Look at Me; South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook's savagely energetic vengeance saga Old Boy; and Brazilian Walter Salles' The Motorcycle Diaries, a portrait of rebel Che Guevara as a young romantic.Chinese actress Maggie Cheung won the best actress award for her role in Clean by director Olivier Assayas about a mother who tries to kick her drug habit and reconcile with her long-lost son.

Japanese child actor Yagira Yuuya won the best actor award for his role in in Nobody Knows, the story of four children abandoned by their mother who have to fend for themselves.

 

Fahrenheit 9/11 proved the festival's biggest attraction but had been considered a longshot for the top award.

 

After handing out awards, the 57th festival wraps up Sunday with encore screenings of the winners.

Quentin Tarantino headed the nine-member jury handing out prizes in Cannes' main competition. Other jurors included actresses Kathleen Turner, Tilda Swinton and Emmanuelle Beart.

The festival's closing film — De-Lovely, Kevin Kline's musical biography of Cole Porter — was to screen immediately after the awards Saturday night. Kline and co-star Ashley Judd then planned to introduce Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morissette, Natalie Cole and other musical performers from De-Lovely at a concert party on the beach.

Earlier today, Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembene's Moolaade, an examination of the ritual of female circumcision that won rave reviews from critics, won the top prize in a secondary Cannes competition called Un Certain Regard.

With a solid mix of movies from acclaimed international filmmakers, up-and-coming directors and top Hollywood talent, this year's festival soothed many critics who carped over the dreary Cannes lineup a year earlier.

Along with Shrek 2, The Ladykillers and Fahrenheit 9/11, the festival's main competition included the visually sumptuous drama 2046 from China's Wong Kar-wai; British director Stephen Hopkins' The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, with Geoffrey Rush in the title role; and the Serbian-Bosnian wartime chronicle Life Is a Miracle, from Serbia's Emir Kusturica. Kusturica is a two-time winner of Cannes' top honor for 1985's When Father Was Away on Business and 1995's Underground.

High-profile films screening out of competition included Brad Pitt's epic Troy, Billy Bob Thornton's black comedy Bad Santa, Sarah Polley and Ving Rhames' zombie remake Dawn of the Dead and Pedro Almodovar's opening-night drama Bad Education.

Tarantino also screened Kill Bill — Vol. 2, the conclusion of his vengeance saga starring Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Daryl Hannah and Michael Madsen.

Celebrity-watchers were also treated to visits by Sean Penn, who starred in The Assassination of Richard Nixon, Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz of Shrek 2, and Will Smith, Angelina Jolie and Jack Black, who turned up to promote their upcoming animated comedy Shark Tale.