DOHA: Five of seven Doha Film Institute (DFI)-backed films have won awards at the 69th annual Cannes film Festival which concluded yesterday.
Iran's Shahab Hosseini clinched best actor for Asghar Farhadi's taut moral drama "The Salesman", about a married couple thrown into turmoil after the wife is attacked in their home. Farhadi, whose 2011's "A Separation" won the best foreign language film Oscar, also scooped the screenplay honours.
French-Moroccan director Houda Benyamina received the prestigious Camera D’Or for her film “Divines” about a young French teenage girl from a tough immigrant suburb, which screened at Directors Fortnight section of the festival.
Earlier this week, “Dogs” by Romanian director Bogdan Florian Mirica won the International Society of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) award in the Un Certain Regard section, while Mimosas by Oliver Laxe was awarded Nespresso Grand Prize at Critics’ Week. Diamond Island by Cambodian filmmaker Davy Chou was honoured with the SACD Prize.
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British director Ken Loach won the Palme d'Or top prize at Cannes Sunday for the second time in a decade with his moving drama "I, Daniel Blake" about the shame of poverty in austerity-hit Europe.
The award marked a major upset at the world's top film festival in favour of the left-wing director, who turns 80 next month and is known for shining a light on the downtrodden.
He beat runaway favourites including the rapturously received German comedy "Toni Erdmann" by Maren Ade, one of three female directors in competition, and US indie legend Jim Jarmusch's "Paterson" starring Adam Driver as a poetry-writing bus driver. Both left empty-handed.
Loach now joins an elite club of two-time victors at the French Riviera festival including Francis Ford Coppola and Emir Kusturica.
Loach slammed swingeing welfare cuts across Europe as he accepted the prize.
"We are in the grip of a project of austerity driven by ideas that we call neo-liberalism that brought us to near catastrophe," he said.
"It has led to billions of people in serious hardship and many millions struggling from Greece in the east to Spain in the west... while this has brought a tiny few immense wealth."
The runner-up Grand Prix award went to Canada's Xavier Dolan, 27, for his hot-tempered family drama "It's Only the End of the World" featuring a cast of A-list French stars which had been widely panned by critics.
The Peninsula / Agencies
