Entertainment: Cannes Closing Wrap - (CFF03) Highlights from the awards ceremony at the Cannes Film Festival
TAPE: EF03/0481
IN_TIME: 14:05:46
DURATION: 13:19
SOURCES: APTN/Various
RESTRICTIONS: No re-use/re-sale of film clips without clearance
DATELINE: 25th May 2003, Cannes
SHOTLIST
APTN Material
Cannes, 25 May 2003
1. Pan down of front of Le Palais Du Festival.
2. Crowd shot
3. Pull out cast of 'Sharasojya' arriving
4. Close-up Denys Arcand (director of 'Les Invasions Barbares')
5. Mid shot Erri De Luca (head of Jury)
6. Close-up and pull out of Gus Van Sant, director and cast of 'Elephant'
7. Pull out Samira Makhmalbaf, director of '5 O'clock In The Afternoon' (Panj E Asr))
8. Mid shot Win Wenders, director of 'The Soul Of A Man'
9. Close-up press
10. Various arrival
11. Pull out of Oranella La Muti, Actress
12. Cutaway crowd
13. Various Liz Hurley, Model/Actress, and boyfriend
14. Cutaway press
15. Various arrival
16. Mid shot Sting and Trudie Styler
17. Cutaway press
POOL
18. Various Gus Van Sant receives Palme d'Or
19. SOUNDBITE (English) Gus Van Sant, Director:
"Thank you very much jury, it's amazing, for many years I've tried to get my films into the Cannes Film Festival and this time it's very rewarding to have something like this."
20. Various of audience clapping
21. Gus Van Sant holding up Palme d'Or
HBO Films
20. Film clip - 'Elephant'
APTN Material
Cannes, 25 May 2003
25. SOUNDBITE (English) Gus Van Sant, Director:
"It feels really great because I always wanted to just compete in Cannes, whether or not we won anything. I always think that the competition in Cannes is where the action is in the entire film festival world so it feels great to be part of that and to win the actual Palme d'Or is fantastic."
26. Cutaway Gus Van Sant
27. SOUNDBITE (English) Gus Van Sant:
"There were many other incidents of high school violence that involved guns around the United States and other places, even other parts of the world. But usually Columbine is the model for that behaviour and there are a number of things in our film that reflect that, that suggest Columbine."
POOL
27. Various Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Director, receives Grand Prix
28. SOUNDBITE (English) Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Director:
"Thank you very much - first to the judge jury and Gilles Jacob (festival president) and Thierry Fremaux (artistic director) for selecting me here. Like Samira I also want to dedicate this prize to a Turkish filmmaker who received a Palm D'Or here about twenty years ago, Yilmaz Guney, but he could never take his prize back to Turkey. He died in Paris in suffering and he could never see his country again and now I understand how difficult it is."
NBC Film
29. Film clip - 'Uzak'
APTN Material
Cannes, 25 May 2003
30. SOUNDBITE (English) Nuri Bilge Ceylan:
"He was also my cousin you know? He was a very joyful person and I can't imagine a set without him and this one also, very absurd you know? He got a prize in Cannes and he didn't see it - this is very tragic."
31. Close-up award
POOL
32. Various Samira Makhmalbaf, Director, receives Jury prize
33. SOUNDBITE (English) Samira Makhmalbaf, Director:
"Thank you very much. I would like to dedicate this prize to all of the women of the world who have big desire and feel responsibility to the war but don't have any opportunity."
Wild Bunch
34. Film clip - '5 O'Clock In The Afternoon' (Panj E Asr) or (A Cinq Heures de l'Apres-Midi)
APTN Material
Cannes, 25 May 2003
35. SOUNDBITE (English) Samira Makhmalbaf, Director:
''American government didn't do anything in Afghanistan except from changing the Taliban rule that they brought to power themselves. And it's a wrong thing that remember America went to Afghanistan and accused people of...but when you go there it's not like that. The mass media is like this, 100 percent of the news about Afghanistan, then they lower it down and when it goes to zero percent, we think 'no more problem, we have finished'. Then 100 percent in the news about Iraq and then they lower it down and then we all forget it. But maybe through cinema we can go deeper to the life of humanity in different nations."
33. Close-up Samira Makhmalbaf
34. SOUNDBITE (English) Samira Makhmalbaf, Director:
"Hollywood film? No. You mean commercial film? Why? No, why? All of the people are doing that. I film myself representing people who have no-one to talk about them. And for me personally I feel better while I'm living this way, I'm having their experiences. No of course I'm very representative."
POOL
36. Various Denys Arcand receives best screenplay award
37. SOUNDBITE (French) Denys Arcand:
"Thank you very much. It is always a pleasure to be in Cannes and it is always a pleasure to receive a prize, if I had won more often I would never have come back "
Flach Pyramide International
38. Film clip - 'Les Invasions Barbares'
APTN Material
Cannes, 25 May 2003
36. SOUNDBITE (English) Denys Arcand:
"If you come from a small country it's a major thing because look at the media. The media are forced to look at your films so the buyers will look at your films and eventually your films get bought and it's distributed all over the world. If you're an American working for a big studio you don't need this. We do desperately so I'm a happy man."
37. Tilt-up Denys Arcand with prize
38. Cutaway press
HBO Films
39. Film clip - 'Elephant'
APTN Material
Cannes. May 20, 2003
40. SOUNDBITE (English) Gus Van Sant:
"It was a direct reaction to the actual event of Columbine where 4 years ago huge headlines in all the magazines and newspapers and just really really like a lot of focus on that particular event, which extended to violence in the cinema, violence on television, violence in video games, kid culture, violence in music; it was such an explosive thing that I wanted to make something about it."
HBO Films
41. Film clip - 'Elephant'
APTN Material
Cannes. May 20, 2003
42. SOUNDBITE Gus Van Sant: (English):
"There wasn't dialogue written down, the students performed all of their dialogue without anything being written, and sometimes they would suggest things, sometimes during a rehearsal I would say, this is good, this is bad, but there was never anything written down specifically, they were pretty much encouraged to be themselves and talk like they would talk and the things that they would talk about."
APTN Material
Cannes, 25 May 2003
43. Mid shot Gus Van Sant holding up award at press conference
44. Various arrivals at post Awards dinner
45. Mid shot Gus Van Sant, Danis Tanovic (jury member/ director), Meg Ryan (jury member/actress)
46. Pan of party
47. Mid shot Gus Van Sant, Danis Tonovic and Meg Ryan
ELEPHANT TRUMPS COMPETITION IN CANNES
GUS VAN SANT's 'Elephant,' a disturbing film about a fictional high school shooting in the United States, won the top prize at the Cannes on Sunday, bringing the most low-key festival for many years to an end.
Despite speculation that the this year's competition would favour French-backed projects, the Amercian film was triumphant scooping the best director prize, as well as the Palme d'Or.
Director Van Sant took a massive risk and cast real high school students, not professional actors, to star in the film, and asked them to improvise their lines.
For Van Sant, the film harks back to the small, lower-budget movies he once made, like 'My Own Private Idaho.'
He shot the film in just 20 days. It starts out showing an ordinary school day, with students gossiping in the cafeteria, playing football or working in the photography lab. The end is stunning and graphic: Two students go on a Columbine-style shooting spree in the hallways.
So impressed were the jury that they campaigned to change the Festival's rules and award Van Sant, best known for 'Good Will Hunting,' the prize for best director as well.
His win also proved that despite world politics there was no tension between filmakers form France and the USA.
"Thank you very much, from the bottom of my heart," he said, looking somewhat stunned after winning the festival's top prize. "For years, I tried to bring one of my films to the Cannes festival and this time, it's invigorating to receive such a prize. Long live France!"
The director was the first American to take the Palme d'Or since Quentin Tarantino won for "Pulp Fiction" in 1994.
'Uzak,' (Distant) a Turkish film about a jobless man from the countryside who irritates his sophisticated city cousin by moving into his apartment, won the Grand Prize, or second place.
The film's two stars, Muzaffer Ozdemir and Mehmet Emin Toprak, shared the award for best actor. They played the two cousins - both lonely and alienated, but unable to become friends. Toprak died in a car crash shortly after learning that the film was selected to show in Cannes; Ozdemir is an architect by profession, not an actor.
The director NURI BILGE CEYLAN spoke of his grief this evening as Toprak was his cousin.
The screen writing prize went to DENYS ARCAND for 'Les Invasions Barbares' (The Barbarian Invasions).
He also directed the French-Canadian film about a man who confronts death with humour and sharp intelligence. The movie seemed to touch the most hearts in Cannes, and had many viewers wiping away tears. Marie-Josee Croze, who plays a young drug addict recruited to supply the dying man with heroin to ease his pain, won the award for best actress.
The jury prize went to 'At Five in the Afternoon,' by 23-year-old SAMIRA MAKHMALBAF of Iran. The movie - her third to show in Cannes - is about a spirited young Afghan who dreams of being her country's first woman president.
'Reconstruction,' by Denmark's Christoffer Boe, won the Camera d'Or, an award for the best film by a first-time director. The prize for best short film went to Australia's Glendyn Ivin for "Cracker Bag," about a girl who saves her pocket change to buy firecrackers.
Palm d'Or - 'Elephant'
Best director - Gus Van Sant
Grand Prix - 'Uzak'
Best actress - Marie Josee Croze - 'Les Invasions Barbares'
Best actor - Muzaffer Ozdemir and Mehmet Emin Toprak - 'Uzak'
Jury Prize - '5 O'clock In The Afternoon' (Panj E Asr) or (A Cinq Heures de l'Apres-Midi)
Best screen play - Denys Arcand - 'Les Invasions Barbares'
Camera d'Or - 'Reconstruction'
FILM CLIP DETAILS
Modern Times
MK2
33 (0) 1 44 67 30 00
Elephant
HBO Films
44 (0) 20 7984 5051
Uzak
NBC Film
90 212 249 6962
5 O'Clock In The Afternoon (Panj E Asr)
Wild Bunch
33 (0) 1 53 01 50 24
Flach Pyramide International
Les Invasions Barbares
33 (0) 1 42 96 02 20