21/05/2005

For this 58th Cannes Film Festival, the traditional press conference organised after the final ceremony starred two big winners and regular guests of the French festival : Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, who have just won their second Golden Palm with The Child and wished to share their joy with the actors, Jérémie Renier and Deborah François. ‘It feels strange to win another Golden Palm,’ said Jean-Pierre Dardenne. When asked about the social implications of their movie, both brothers pointed out the dangers of any systematical approach : ‘the best style for a director is not to have one. Social reality cinema is a notion only the newspapers use, but it is an over-simplified description which does not account for all that there is in a film. What really counts is the emotion a movie makes you feel. As far as we are concerned, we just use reality, simple stories we hope the public will enjoy.’

Michael Haneke, in competition with Hidden, had pulled himself together for the press conference after showing great disappointment at the award ceremony which took place at the Théâtre Lumière. The expected Golden Palm was indeed replaced by a Palm as Best Director. However, Michael Haneke still hopes he will one day win the prestigious award : ‘When you are in a contest, you do hope to win a prize. I will try again next time to win the Golden Palm. Of course, one always wants to win as many prizes as possible, and attract a crowd of spectators —bear in mind that in theatres, we compete with such films as Star Wars.’ The Austrian director took advantage of this press conference to announce the subject of his next project : ‘I intend to shoot an opera in Paris, a new version of Don Giovanni. I have been working on the script for several months. This will be a surprise for me, and for opera.

(Translated from French)