The Cannes Film Festival Blog

The Italian movie "From the Waist Up" (Dalla vita in Poi) not only won the Taormina Film Festival top prize, the "Golden Tauro", but also got the awards for "Best actress" (Cristina Capotondi) and "Best Actor" (Filippo Nigro). Best Actress winner Cristina Capotondi and Cast of Golden Tauro winner "From the Waist Up" The only other prize awarded by the international jury went to Spanish director Jorge Coira for "Best Director" of the movie "18 Meals". The German movie "Friendship" was awarded the top prize by the audience jury, and the student jury awarded the film Brazilian film "Besouro" as well as "53 Dias de Invierno" from Spain. The Sicilian short film award went to "Rec Stop and Play".

In a master class at the 2010 Taormina Film Festival, the cinema "ueber"-icon Robert De Niro talks about his work as a Director, his recent successes in comedies and how working with Michael Mann turned him into a potential bank robber. We just saw the movie “The Good Shepherd” which you directed - what attracted you to this story about the CIA? Robert De Niro: Intelligence - any intelligence service - is interesting to me. That whole world is fascinating. It's fascinating stuff - great stuff for a movie. How could the story develop? What would be the sequel? Robert De Niro: The first sequel would be from 61 to 89 – covering the building of the wall to the falling of the wall. That's what the intention is. The next one if I ever did it would be to the present. Mainstream American cinema is not providing the same pleasures as when I was young. Enteraining and smart cinema seems to go away. Do you feel that you arrivedat exactly the right moment to do your career? Robe...

An either bored, seriously jetlagged or both Robert de Niro was met today by an enthusiastic Sicilian audience in the packed grand meeting hall of the Taormina conference center. This was only de Niro's fourth visit to an island that seems to have determined so much of his "mafioso" roles, and his first since he made "Godfather", which was - yeah - now a long time ago. The start of de Niro's "Master Class" was delayed by the fifteen minutes it took to clear out the alleys and front of the stage of worrysome-for-the-firemen audience members. Once things got started off, de Niro chose to keep it bland - intelligence movies (like "The Good Shepherd") are "fascinating" to him as well as "great stuff" and directing is a "nightmare" - who would have thought? The more interesting stuff came near the end - de Niro and Scorcese are working on what he described as "Goodfellas" like project based on a boo...

Allegedly (and I guess everything in Sicily is "allegedly") 90.000 Dollars (or was it Euros?) went into making the 2000-year-old Greek theater 3D- ready for the World premiere of Disney's "Toy Story 3". The open-air screening in front of again allegedly 4000 people was allegedly the movie's world premiere - it was allegedly shown before the premiere screening in L.A. The movie itself lived up to the high expectations one has for Pixar films - very entertaining, and always surprisingly engaging for a "toy story". The only potential criticism is that the 3D really didn't add much to the picture - the movie would have worked just as well in 2D. So what's new in toy land? Well, things aren't looking so great - the toy owner has grown up and reached the ripe age of seventeen - so time to go to college, clean out the room at home, which also means: an uncertain future for his toys. Donation? Attic? Or even trash? These are the toy options. T...