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Cannes Film Festival 2010

Thai film wins top prize at Cannes

The Cannes Film Festival has awarded its top prize, the Palme d’Or, to Thai film director Apichatpong Weerasethakul.He was given the award for his film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. It's the first time it has gone to a film from Thailand.

Reuters
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The Grand Prix, which is the second prize, was won by French film Des Hommes et des Dieux (Of men and gods).  Xavier Beauvois' work is a fictional adaptation of the real-life story of seven French monks in Algeria who were taken hostage and killed in 1997.

Spanish actor Javier Bardem and Italy's Elio Germano shared the best actor award and France's Juliette Binoche won the best actress prize.

Apichatpong's winning film tells the story of a dying man who is visited by his late wife and his long-lost son.

After receiving the award from the festival jury’s president Tim Burton, Apichatpong said he wanted to thank "the spirits in Thailand that surrounded us" while making the film. He said winning the Palme d’Or was “like another world for me ... this is surreal.”

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives was one of 19 entries for the festival’s prizes.

Bardem was rewarded for his performance in Biutiful. He was generous in his short speech, describing director Alejandro Gonzalez’ Inarritu’s film as “extraordinary”. He added that he was “grateful and honoured” to be part of it.

He shared the award with Germano, who appeared in La Nostra Vita (Our Life) by Daniele Luchetti. He dedicated his win to the “Italy and the Italian people.”

Binoche won for her part as an art dealer in Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami’s Copie Conforme (Certified Copy).

Frenchman Mathieu Amalric won the prize for best director for Tournee, while Lee Chang-Dong of South Korea won the best screenplay prize for Poetry.

The Jury’s Prize went to Chadian director Mahmet-Saleh Haroun’s film Un homme qui crie (A Screaming Man), which is about family divisions and distress spawned by civil war.

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