Mickey Rourke stars in Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler”

After a very poorly recieved outing with his previous film “The Fountain” which was co-financed and distributed by Warner Bros. and New Regency, director Darren Aronofsky re-booted his film-making formula and garnered a bidding war for his latest film “The Wrestler” at the Toronto Film Festival.

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Natalie Portman’s directorial debut opened the Venice Film Festival’s short-film sidebar.

The actress was on-hand for the September 1st screening of her film entitled “Eve” which is 17 minutes long and stars legendary actors Lauren Bacall and Ben Gazzara. “Eve” is an out-of-competition ‘civilized comedy’ – in addition to Portman’s film, other films from the US, the UK, Belgium and France are included.

The short-film side-bar will close with director Martin Gaiss‘ 12-minute short entitled “Jarred” – Gaiss is a former publicist for 20th Century Fox and the film is his directorial debut.

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“Burn After Reading” cast members in Venice, Italy

This year’s festival offers zero films from Britain, and only 5 in English – all from the United States. (This coming a year after 11 films in English were shown)

Another United States submission comes from Iranian-born Amir Naderi and is entitled “Vegas: Based on a True Story,” about the family of a compulsive gambler and the intrusion of an stranger.

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Sean Penn, the jury head awarded the Palme d’Or prize for this year’s Cannes Film Festival to French film “The Class” about life in a tough Parisian school.  The film directed by Laurent Cantet uses real students and teachers in chronicling a year in their lives.  It is a film based on an autobiographical novel by young teacher Francois Begaudeau – and was praised by Penn as “an amazing, amazing film.”  In accepting the award, Cantet said that he aimed to make a film that was “a reflection of French society – multiple, many-faceted, [and] complex.  Sometimes also with friction that the film does not try to cover up.”

“Hunger” a portrayal of the last six week of Irish Republican Army hunger striker Bobby Sands took the Camera d’Or prize for best first feature film. 

Benecio Del Toro won best Actor for his portrayal of Ernesto “Che” Guevara in the Steven Soderbergh biopic entitled simply “Che” – “I’d like to dedicate this to the man himself, Che Guevara” said Del Toro in accepting the award.

Brazilian star Sandra Corveloni won best Actress for playing a pregnant mother of four in Sao Paolo in the film “Line of Passage.”

Clint Eastwood (who also directed “Changeling” starring Angelina Jolie) and Catherine Deneuve won lifetime achievement awards at the French festival’s closing ceremony.

Sean Penn praised the quality of films in this year’s festival stating: 

“There was a field of such powerful, emotional, moving movies and performances, there were so many times that we thought it just can’t get better.”

Italian mafia movie “Gomorrah,” set in Naples and based on a novel by Roberto Saviana, took the Grand Prix runner-up prize.

The third place jury prize went to “Il Divo,” Paolo Sorrentino’s portrait of the country’s former prime minister, Giulio Andreotto.

61st Cannes Film Festival

Palme d’Or – The Class

Grand Prix – Gomorrah

Special prizes – Clint Eastwood and Catherine Deneuve

Best director – Nuri Bilge Ceylan for Three Monkeys

Jury prize – Il Divo directed by Paolo Sorrentino

Best actor – Benicio del Toro (above) in Che

Best actress – Sandra Corveloni in Line of Passage

Best screenplay – Lorna’s Silence by Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne

Camera d’Or – Hunger

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