WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank – last seen together in Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby - were the duo who presented the Palme d'Or of this 58th Edition of the Cannes Festival to Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne for The Child.

The brothers began by thanking the Jury for having appreciated their film, “Thank you very much! Thanks to all those who participated in this adventure. We would like to especially share this with the lead actors of the film Jérémie Rénier and Déborah François. A big thanks to both of you. Thanks also to our French producer Denis Freyd who was so important to the film. We would like to dedicate this Palme to Florence Aubenas and her guide Hussein Hanoun, who are still held hostage in Iraq."

Fanny Ardant presented the Grand Prix to director Jim Jarmusch for his film Broken Flowers.

"It's a great honor to accept this prize on behalf of all those who worked on this film. When making a film, all the cast and crew are on equal footing. Thanks to all who made this film possible, especially Bill Murray." He added, "I would also like to say quickly that I do not believe in competition for artistic works. It's already an honor to be selected in the competition and to be here next to such great directors as Atom Egoyan, David Cronenberg, Amos Gitaï, Lars Von Trier, Gus Van Sant, Johnnie To and Mr. Hou Hsiao-Hsien as I am one of his students, Wim Wenders who has been so generous with me when I began making movies 20 years ago and Robert Rodriguez. I accept this award in the name of all filmmakers who follow their heart and make films that interpret their vision."

Ralph Fiennes presented the Prix d'Interprétation Féminine, or Best Actress award, to Hanna Laslo for her performance in Free Zone by Amos Gitai.

"I would like to share this award with Amos Gitaï, my director who gave me the opportunity to be in his film and who believed in me. I would also like to share this prize with my mother, who is a Holocaust survivor of Auschwitz. I have a special thought for Holocaust survivors everywhere and victims in general, notably Arabs and Palestinians. It's high time we come together and try to work out solutions to this problem."

In the press conference for the award-winners, actress Hanna Laslo talked about acting with Amos: “One good thing about the movie is that it touches political subjects which is boring, because we see Israel in the news, but the only way to touch the subject is with humor in a way of human humor and I think it is a combination.”

Penelope Cruz presented Tommy Lee Jones with the Prix d'interprétation masculine, or Best Actor award, for his performance in the film he also directed, The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada.

Accepting the award, actor-director Tommy Lee Jones declared, "Thank you very much. I would like to thank all those who believed in this film, and encouraged me every day. I would like to start with my wife, the people in Northern Mexico and Western Texas, Pierre-Ange Le Pogam, Luc Besson, Chris Mangus and the audience who showed their open spirit at the official screening last evening. Thank you with all my heart!"

At the press conference for the award-winners, Tommy Lee Jones was in fine form: “Of course I'm surprised and more than anything I am honored by this most prestigious Film Festival in the world...That's the reason that you become a filmmaker or an actor, because one day at some point in your life, you might see 3,000 people come together in a single joyful mind.”

The Prix de la mise en scène, or Best Director award, was conferred upon Michael Haneke by Kirsten Scott Thomas for Hidden.

The winner of the prize for Best Screenplay, presented by Zhang Ziyi, was Guillermo Arriaga, for the script he wrote for The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada by Tommy Lee Jones.

Lambert Wilson and Valérie Lemercier were onstage to present the Jury Prize to Wang Xiaoshuai for his film Shanghai Dreams.

The Caméra d'Or landed in a tie, to Sulanga Enu Pinisa (The Forsaken Land) by Vimukthi Jayasundara, which had been selected for Un Certain Regard, and Me And You And Everyone We Know by Miranda July, which screened on the Critics' Week program. Abbas Kiarostami and Milla Jovovich had the honor of presenting the prizes...

The Cinéfondation and Short Film Jury presided by Edward Yang conferred the distinction of the Short Film Palme d'Or upon Podorozhni (Wayfarers) by Igor Strembitskyy. The Short Film Special Mention was awarded to Clara by Van Sowerwine.

Update: 22nd May

The 58th Edition of the Cannes Film Festival came to a close today with the traditional Palmarès awards ceremony. Jury President Emir Kusturica presented the Palme d'Or to the brotherly team of directors Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, who received the top prize for the film The Child, about reluctant fatherhood, starring Jérémie Rénier and Déborah François. The winner of the Grand Prix was Jim Jarmusch for his film Broken Flowers. Awards and applause were also given to: Hanna Laslo, winner of the Best Actress Award for her performance in Free Zone by Amos Gitaï, and Tommy Lee Jones, voted Best Actor for his performance in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.

UK director Martha Fiennes and the cast of her film Chromophobia, Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas, Penelope Cruz, Rhys Ifans, Damian Lewis, and Ben Chaplin, had traveled to the Croisette for this year's last screening, an out-of-competition presentation with a story looking at the disintegration of a well-to-do London family.

Update: 21st May

The last films to be presented in the 58th Edition of the Festival competition yesterday were both connected to the number 3: The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada directed by the American Tommy Lee Jones, a combination of crime intrigue and self-realization journey in the Mexican desert, and Three Times by the Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao Hsien: three love stories set at three different points in time (1966, 1911 and 2005). Romance was also the topic of Operetta Tanukigoten (Princess Raccoon), a musical by Seijun Suzuki of Japan. In this feature, which screened out-of-competition, Zhang Ziyi and Joe Odagiri play Princess Tanuki and Prince Amechiyo, who are passionately in love with each other.

Update: 20th May

The competition selection brought German director Wim Wenders to the Croisette with Don't Come Knocking, the third film in competition to deal with the subject of paternity, following Broken Flowers from Jim Jarmusch and The Child from brothers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne. Sam Shepard plays an aging western actor who sets out to discover his offspring whose existence was unknown to him previously. Israeli director Amos Gitaï is also vying for the Palme d'Or with Free Zone, a drama about three women, an American (Natalie Portman), an Israeli (Hanna Laslo) and a Palestinian (Hiam Abbass), in the no-tax free zone in East Jordan. Korean director Hong Sangsoo took festival-goers farther East with Tale of Cinema, in which the paths of two men and a woman intersect and move apart in a mirror game revolving around cinema.

Update: 19th May

For this eighth day, the Festival took on the color of Sin City. Presented in competition, this comic book screen adaptation by Frank Miller, teamed with director Robert Rodriguez, brought a dazzling cast onto the Cannes red carpet - Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Benicio Del Toro, Clive Owen, Jessica Alba – who act out the three brutal and bloodthirsty episodes of life in the dark city where all sins are permitted. In contrast, the other competition feature, from the brothers Arnaud & Jean-Marie Larrieu, also eligible for a Palme d'Or, invites Daniel Auteuil, Sabine Azéma, Sergi Lopez and Amira Casar To Paint or Make Love in sensuous mountain landscapes, for a story about two couples who shed their inhibitions for the advantage of unexpected pleasures.

Update: 18th May

Fatherhood was the theme shared by both of the films presented in competition yesterday. Broken Flowers, by the American Jim Jarmusch, is the story of how a middle-aged bachelor (Bill Murray), learning somewhat belatedly that he is a father, conducts a quest for his old flames to determine which one is the mother. In L'Enfant (The Child), by Belgians Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Jérémie Rénier plays a young delinquent who does not appear to be ready to assume his obligations as a father. Wang Xiaoshuai, the third of Tuesday's contenders for the Palme d'Or, was representing his film Shanghai Dreams, which is a hymn to a generation of Chinese who have the same type of background as his.

Update: 17th May

Yesterday, the competition welcomed directors Lars Von Trier and David Cronenberg, two Cannes Festival veterans, each of whom had come to impart a certain vision of America. Von Trier approached the theme of slavery in the United States via Manderlay, the second chapter of a trilogy he began two years ago with Dogville. Cronenberg indulged in "a meditation" on the US gun lobby with his thriller A History of Violence. The Festival then sailed back to Europe for the out-of-competition presentation of Joyeux Noël (Merry Christmas), a World War One drama by Christian Carion based on an incident that actually occurred: Christmas Eve fraternization between enemy troops.

In the Un Certain Regard section, the issue was love and death or Eros and Thanatos with Cidade Baixa (Lower City) by the Brazilian Sergio Machado: the story of a love triangle ready to shatter under the pressure of jealousy and fierce emotion. Time to Leave, by French director François Ozon, is about a young photographer whose cancer has left him with a life expectancy of only a few months. As part of the Master Class series which has already been graced by the presence of actress Catherine Deneuve and filmmaker Ousmane Sembène , the Festival invited composer Patrick Doyle to teach a Master Class in Music: an opportunity for him to discuss his relationship to film scores, his work methods, and his experiences with such talented directors as Brian de Palma (Femme Fatale), Robert Altman (Gosford Park), and Régis Wargnier (Indochina).

Update: 16th May

Yesterday, the Cannes Festival gave a triumphal welcome to director George Lucas, who had come to present out of competition and in a world premiere the third and latest adventure in the Star Wars saga, Revenge of the Sith. Lucas was also awarded the Festival Trophy aboard the luxury liner Queen Mary 2.

Light years away from Star Wars, young Mexican director Carlos Reygadas, in the running for a Palme d'Or, narrated a different type of struggle with Battle in Heaven, the story of a chauffeur who is haunted after a plot he and his wife had to kidnap a child ends in tragedy. Marco Tullio Giordana's latest feature, Once You're Born ... , looks at the problem of illegal immigration in Italy. In the Un Certain Regard section, Germany, the United States, and Denmark were represented in the competition with, respectively, Falscher Bekenner (Low Profile), by Christoph Hochhäusler; The King, by James Marsh; and Voksne Mennesker (Dark Horse), by Dagur Kari.

The Senegalese director Ousmane Sembène, winner of the Un Certain Regard Prize for Moolaadé in 2004, was on hand for a Master Class in cinema, in which he described how he became a filmmaker, how he works, and the current state of African film business. Lastly, Cannes Festival President Gilles Jacob was decorated with the insignia of the commander of the Ordre National de la Légion d'Honneur while actor Daniel Auteuil received those of Officer in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and director Francis Girod those of Officer of the Légion d'Honneur.

Update: 15th May

One of the events today was the official presentation of Hidden, Michael Haneke's latest competition entry, which prompts the audience to reflect upon the themes of guilt, fear, and the way pictures are manipulated and manipulative. True to his philosophy, he leaves viewers free to interpret the end of the movie however they like. Today also saw Johnnie To returning to the Croisette with Election, which divulges the secret workings of Hong Kong's triad crime families.

The festival also inaugurated an entirely new program called "Cinemas of the World," which focuses on presenting a broad spectrum of film production in a given country. The program premiered with Morocco. The spotlight was also on the United States with the arrival in Cannes of Shane Black, Val Kilmer, Robert Downey, Jr., and Michelle Monaghan, the director and cast of Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, and the duo of Edward Norton and Evan Rachel Wood, the stars of Down in the Valley, a contender in Un Certain Regard.

Update: Saturday 14th May

The anguish of fame is the theme common to the two films presented in competition yesterday: Last Days by Gus Van Sant, an interpretation of grunge-rock icon Kurt Cobain's final days, and Where the Truth Lies by Atom Egoyan, the dark story of a couple of famous comedians caught up in a sex-and-murder scandal. German-born Turkish director Fatih Akin, a jury member for the Official Selection feature film competition, was also on the Croisette to present his latest effort, Crossing the Bridge, out of competition: a documentary celebrating the musical diversity and creativity characteristic of the city of Istanbul.

Update: Friday 13th May

On the second day of this 58th edition, Woody Allen, accompanied by Scarlett Johansson, Emily Mortimer & Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, was present on the Croisette with his latest film Match Point. For this 36th feature film, Woody left his stomping ground in Manhattan and shot the film entirely in London: “I made the film in London because the atmosphere was very good for me creatively." The film focuses on Chris, a modest tennis instructor, who breaks through into British high society.

Earlier in the day, the attention was on the two Official Selection films in competition, Bashing by Masahiro Kobayashi (Japan), and Kilometre Zero by Hiner Saleem (Iraqi Kurdistan). The first deals with society harassment that hostages suffer after their release and return home; the second deals with a Kurd forced to serve in Saddam's Army during the Iraq-Iran war.

For the first time in the history of the Cannes Festival's master classes, the Lecon de Cinema placed the limelight on an actress, Catherine Deneuve, who revealed the secrets of her craft. Gilles Jacob began the class by awarding the actress, who he qualified as the "French Katharine Hepburn", with an Honorary Palm Award. It seems to me that it is fundamental for an actor to be open, available, in order to enter into the director's world," stated the actress.

Also marking this second day of the Festival was the opening of the Un Certain Regard section with opener Hwal (The Bow), and Sangre. Hwal, Kim Ki-duk's latest film, looks at the love of an old man for a young girl. "Power and a beautiful voice – like a taut bow... I want to live like this until I draw my last breath" , explained the Korean director. Sangre from young Spanish director Amat Escalante, presents the daily life of Blanca and Diego, who receive the visit of Diego's daughter from another marriage. "This project was born out of the disenchantment and frustration from a population which is no longer capable of taking charge of its own future."

Update: Thursday 12th May

The curtain went up on the 58th edition of the Festival de Cannes at the bidding of the mistress of ceremony Cécile de France and Jury President Emir Kusturica; the latter was of course in the company of the other Jury members: directors Agnès Varda, John Woo, Benoît Jacquot & Fatih Aki, actors Nandita Das, Javier Bardem & Salma Hayek as well as writer Toni Morrison. The Jury has the task of bestowing the Palme d'Or on one of the 21 feature films in the Official Selection.

Following the Opening Ceremony was the opening film Lemming from French director Dominik Moll, one of the three French films presented in competition this year, along with Peindre ou faire l'amour by Arnaud & Jean-Marie Larrieu and Caché from Michael Haneke. This was Moll's second visit to the Croisette; he presented Harry, He's Here to Help in the year 2000. At his side on the red carpet were the stars from the film: Laurent Lucas, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Charlotte Rampling & André Dussollier.

One of France's most important cultural and business events, The Cannes International Film Festival is the most prestigious film festival in the world. Since the first time it was held in 1946, each year the Festival De Cannes is a major crossroads for the film industry attracting glitterati for its parties and over 30,000 industry professionals and 200,000 people for 900 screenings at the world famous Palais, serving as the prime setting to showcase the world's best film-making.

Each year over 2,200 films are submitted for consideration from hundreds of countries, for around 55 features and 40 short film births in the official program. Directors, producers and agents work the crowds in pursuit of lucrative movie deals whilst Cannes winners often emerge as the year's most talked-about films.

Given the massive media exposure, the non-public Festival is attended by many movie stars and renowned directors as well as new producers and unknown filmmakers to launch their films and attempt to sell their works to distributors who come from all over the globe.

Open to both features and shorts, the Holy Grail of the competition is of course the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) for best picture, one of the most prestigious awards a film can receive anywhere - for art-house films, it means millions of extra dollars at the international box- office, for foreign films it means worldwide distribution.

This year, 20 movies from 13 countries have been selected to compete with the awards being announced on 21st May. The competition presents very personal and unclassifiable works: Sin City by Roberto Rodriguez who, with the help of Frank Miller and with Quentin Tarantino as guest-director has made a "human cartoon"; Batalla en el cielo from the Mexican Carlos Reygadas, whose radical aesthetics are only rivalled by the darkness of his subject; Free Zone by Amos Gitaï, who carries his camera into the heart of burning, passionate territories; Election by Johnnie To, who goes beyond the codes of the genre with this very "auteur " version of a traditional Hong Kong detective film.

There is also a return to classicism in the competition: Where the Truth Lies by Atom Egoyan is a psychological thriller, Don't Come Knocking by Wim Wenders, who continues his journey through America and its cinema, History of Violence by David Cronenberg, which adds its contribution to the classic storylines of ‘vengeance' films as well as his personal obsessions; Quand tu es né by Marco Tullio Giordana represents Italy in competition with a social piece of work that closely intertwines content and form. Among the newcomers, there is The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada by Tommy Lee Jones who, for his first film, and with the help of screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga (Amores Perros, 21 Grams), proposes a contemporary western between the USA and Mexico, or Shanghai Dreams by Wang Xiaoshuai who visits the seventies in China.

There are also filmmakers who continue their aesthetic exploration and try to extend narrative and directional forms: Lars von Trier who, with Manderlay, explicitly places himself in direct continuation of Dogville, which was presented in 2003; Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne who, with L'Enfant, propose a very political vision of Belgian society; Hou Hsiao Hsien, whose film - The Best of Our Times - becomes a journey into his own filmography; and Gus Van Sant returns after Elephant with Last Days, a film that is even further removed from Hollywood.

Out of Competition, Cannes will also be hosting the world premier of the sure-to-be-a-blockbuster, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Woody Allen's Match Point (Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and internationally acclaimed director Seijun Suzuki uses cutting edge digital technology to bring the tale of Princess Racoon (Zhang Ziyi) to life.

The jury of the festival is made up of a small international selection of movie professionals. Presiding on this year's jury actress Salma Hayek, Spanish actor Javier Bardem and Chinese director John Woo will join Jury President Bosnian director Emir Kusturica selecting this year's Festival winners along with writer Toni Morrison, Indian actress Nandita Das, French directors Agnes Varda and Benoit Jacquot, and Fatih Akin from Germany .

After the success of Life is a Miracle in 2004, Emir Kusturica accepted to preside the Jury this year, he who once said "I have been born several times, and I'm sure that one of those times was in Cannes."

"I want to thank the Festival de Cannes, which has twice recognized my films, in 1985 [When Father Was Away on Business] and in 1995 [Underground], by awarding me the Palme d'Or. Now it is my turn to defend the values of the Festival: I have set my task as Jury President to place aesthetics and art at the heart of the event."

Award winning Director Alexander Payne (Sideways) will be the president of the ‘Un Certain Regard' Jury, whilst Abbas Kiarostami, who's groundbreaking work has brought the renaissance of Iranian filmmaking to the world, has been chosen as President of the Jury for the ‘Caméra d'Or'. Abbas says “I would like to salute the Festival for the way in which it views and welcomes the world, in all its colour and diversity.”

With the likes of Scarlett Johansson, Woody Allen, Robert Downey Jr, Val Kilmer, Ewan McGregor, Samuel Jackson, Nathalie Portman, Danny Glover, Viggo Mortensen, Sharon Stone, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Shu Qi, Tommy Lee Jones, Zhang Ziyi, Gael Garcia Bernal, William Hurt, Ed Harris, Tim Roth, Eva Marie Saint, Kevin Bacon, Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche, Benicio del Toro, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis and Edward Norton making appearances, the stars still show up to bask in the limelight, the crowds still gather to watch, and Cannes' reputation as the king of film festivals just gets stronger every year.