Hey folks, Harry here with Ekrem's report on the winners at Cannes this year. He filled us in earlier with word on UZAK, which he felt was going to be overlooked, but luckily... it seems the Jury acknowledged the film with two different awards, guaranteeing it of international acclaim. Very cool. Looks like it was Van Sant's year, here ya go...

hey harry, just wanted to quicly chime in with the winner of this years Cannes Film Festival.

it was a happy year for me as Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Uzak (Distant) won the Grand Juri Prix (the same award Paul Thomas Anderson's marvelous Punch-Drunk Love shared last year with Kwon-Taek Im for CHIHWASEON) and his actors Muzaffer Ozdemir and Mehmet Emin Toprak (who had tragically died in a bus crash shortly after the films domestic release in Turkey) won for best actor as well. Perhaps this small little gem will find an American distributer now.

It's also good news that Van Sant's Elephant, which deals with a group of kids who go on a Columbine like rampage won the Palme d'Or. Cinema is an amazing tool for being a mirror for ourselves and our society.

Yet, as many (old farts of) critics complained, these films are nothing but mirrors. I hate being nostalgic, but where are the dreams that made the films of fellini, truffaut, bunuel etc? Where are the dreams of the filmmakers of our day? Thank god there are filmmakers like Richard Linklater, Spike Jonze and Wes Anderson in America, but especially filmmakers who are at political and social discontent with our TV-gross out generation seem to be hopeless. The greatest duty of an artist in my opinion is to fill the audience with dreams, and the most insulting kind of laziness is the laziness to dream. ah, enough of my rant.

Anyway, here's the full selection Awards film feature

Palme d'Or (Golden Palm)

Elephant by Gus Van Sant (USA)

Best Director award

Elephant by Gus Van Sant (USA)

Best Actress award

Marie Josée Croze - Barbarian Invasions by Denys Arcand (Quebec)

Best Actor award

Muzaffer Ozdemir and Mehmet Emin Toprak actors' in Uzak by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey)

Best Screenplay

Barbarian Invasions by Denys Arcand (Quebec)

Jury Prize

Five in the Afternoon by Samira Makhmalbaf (Iran)

Grand Jury Prize

Uzak by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey)

Caméra d'Or Prize (Golden Camera)

Reconstruction by Christoffer Boe (Denmark)

Special Mention Camera d'Or (Golden Camera)

Osama by Sedigh Barmak (Afghanistan)

Awards short films