With the 2012 Cannes Film Festival wrapping up, it has been announced that Michael Haneke’s Amour has won the prestigious Palme d’Or. The full awards were announced earlier during the festivities of the finale of the 2012 Cannes Film Festival in France.
This marks the second Palme d’Or win for Haneke, whose 2009 film The White Ribbon also picked up the award. You can read our review of Amour out of Cannes right here, where our guest reviewer Marco Cerritos wrote, “This is human cinema that is meant to be brutal and test your emotions. Some may embrace that challenge and act accordingly. Everyone else will be bored to tears. But even those who find indifference in Amour can hopefully acknowledge the reality of love and loss it so beautifully depicts.”
The Camera d’Or, awarded to most outstanding debut feature, went to Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild, which Hypable will be reviewing in the upcoming weeks before it’s release from Fox Searchlight. Said Zeitlin on the distinction, “[It’s] not just my first film but also the first film of just about everyone who worked on it. You never know if you are going to be invited to dance in the temple but thank you. You changed everyone’s lives.”
Carlos Reygadas was awarded the best director honor for his film Post Tenebras Lux, the tale of an urban Mexican family living in the countryside, where they both thrive and suffer together.
Mads Mikkelsen, meanwhile, picked up the actor award for Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt, our review of which can be read here. Mikkelsen has previously appeared in such films as Casino Royale and Nicolas Winding Refn’s Valhalla Rising.
The best actress prize was shared by Cosmina Stratan and Christina Flutor for Çristian Mingu’s Beyond the Hills, which also picked up the screenplay prize. The film tells the story of “A drama centered on the friendship between two young women who grew up in the same orphanage; one has found refuge at a convent in Romania and refuses to leave with her friend, who now lives in Germany.”
Matteo Garrone’s Reality captured the Grand Prix, his second time achieving the distinction, after his 2008 film Gomorrah took home the prize. The film looks at a “Neapolitan fishmonger’s all-consuming obsession with appearing on the Italian version of “Big Brother”.”
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