[1]Three past winners of the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival — Ken Loach, Mike Leigh and Abbas Kiarostami — are in the running for the same award again as 19 films compete at the world’s premier cinema showcase.
Critics have been generally unimpressed with the lineup Cannes presented at the 12-day festival along the French Riviera, with a handful of films stirring some buzz but most of the entries premiering to lukewarm receptions. The festival ends on Sunday night with the awards ceremony and a screening of the closing film, French director Julie Bertuccelli’s The Tree, a family drama starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, who won the best-actress award at Cannes in 2009 for Antichrist. Kristin Scott Thomas, who presided ov-er the festival’s opening ce-remonies, handles the sa-me duties for awards night.
British director Leigh’s ensemble drama Another Year, featuring Jim Broadbent and Imelda Staunton, received favourable rev-iews, particularly for co-star Lesley Manville as a lonely middle-aged woman desperate for companionship. Leigh’s Secrets and Lies won the festival’s top honour, the Palme d’Or, in 1996. —AP
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