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Judging the judges at Cannes
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/02/2017
» There was a chorus of surprise when the 69th Cannes Film Festival last Sunday awarded its top prize to Ken Loach's welfare drama I, Daniel Blake -- because the film was largely absent from the critical radar during the 12-day festival. A bigger surprise (not to say disappointment) was when the second prize went to Xavier Dolan's melodrama It's Only The End Of The World, because the film was nearly unanimously disliked for its histrionics and theatrical conceits. When the jury, led by Mad Max director George Miller, gave the prize to Dolan's film, a joke sprang up and quickly caught on, inspired by the film's title: yes, for this film to be honoured by Cannes it is the end of the world, or the end of cinema. Apocalypse now!
Berlinale, it's a wrap
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 22/02/2012
» In Berlin last weekend, Roman inmates performed Shakespeare and won the Golden Bear, the year's first major prize in world cinema handed out at Europe's premiere film festival. Decking the sidebar awards were a Hungarian movie about violence against gypsies, a poignant East-West German drama, a rapturously eccentric Portuguese black-and-white film, while the only Asian title to score was a Chinese epic set during the last days of imperial rule. It was the usual distribution of honours to cover every base by the jury led by Mike Leigh (and including Jake Gyllenhaal and Charlotte Gainsbourg).