2012 Winners and Awards

Palme d'Or:
"Amour"
Grand Prix:
"Reality"
Prix de la Mise en Scene (best director):
Carlos Reygadas, "Post Tenebras Lux"
Prix du Scenario (best screenplay):
"Beyond The Hills"
Camera d'Or (best first feature):
"Beasts of the Southern Wild"
Prix du Jury (jury prize):
"The Angel's Share"
Prix d'interpretation feminine (best actress):
Cosmina Stratan and Christina Flutor, "Beyond The Hills"
Prix d'interpretation masculine (best actor):
Mads Mikkelsen, "The Hunt"

All 2012 Festival Trailers Available

A hidden, but pretty key gem on the sometimes a little hard to navigate official Cannes Festival site are the trailers of all films in the 2012 Festival (added link to top menu to make it easier to find).

All is there - competition films, side programs, even "Cannes Classics".

Here are some straight links to some of the most highly anticipated films by the "general public":

• Cosmopolis starring the "rob" part of robsten - Robert Pattinson. Trailer looks promisingly gruesome, dangling rats (or is it mice? does it matter?) included, in line with Director Cronenberg's past oeuvre.
• On the Road - on to the "sten" part, Kristen Stewart. Based on Jack Kerouacs famous novel.
• Madagascar 3 - which suitably starts out in nearby Monaco

The "most mysterious trailer" award, though, goes to "Holy Motors" - see for yourself why.

Cannes Film Festival: Who is Who on Twitter

The Cannes Film Festival is one of the best-covered media events each year. Thousands of journalists from all around the world write even more articles every day covering film screenings, a little scandal here and a celebrity sighting there.. The number of journalists attending the Cannes Film Festival is approaching or even exceeding the number of journalists at the Olympic games.

But journalism is so ... yesterday in these times of the "real-time Web". Is it possible to get some news straight from the source? Are there Cannes key players using their twitter accounts to give first hand impressions on what's going on at the Cannes Film Festival?

Here's a shortlist of the most interesting or prominent Cannes Film Festival tweeters and non-tweeters we came across for now (later updates not precluded), what they write about, and whether they are worth following.

• Hiam Abbass - the Palestinian actress and jury member is not on twitter 
• Andrea Arnold - well there's a few of folks on twitter that share the name with this Director and jury member, but none of them seem to be her.
• Emmanuelle Devos - twitter draws a complete blank for the French actress who sits on the jury
• Thierry Fremaux -  second (or first now?) in command at the festival and designated to succeed Gilles Jacob - comments on his personal festival highlights while still carving out time for his passion for Bruce Springsteen. Worth following - again, tweets mostly in French
• Jean-Paul Gaultier - film jury member for ten days and fashion designer otherwise - mostly tweets and retweets about himself - follow him, and you won't miss any appearance of a JPG dress on the red carpet. If that's not your pretty special interest, don't follow.
• Gilles Jacob - festival president since God created the world or even before -  uses the cute twitter handle "jajacobbi" to tweet cheeky pics of Sean Penn and for witty exchanges with his Cannes insider buddies. Worth the follow if you read French. 
• Diane Kruger - no discernible twitter presence for the German actress/jury member
• Ewan McGregor - realizes that as jury member he needs to keep mum about the films he's watching and got slammed for saying film selection is "brilliant". Don't expect any revelations if you choose to follow.
• Nanni Moretti - Jury President - doesn't seem to have a known presence on twitter yet. 
• Alexander Payne - again there's a few matches for this jury member but no clear hit - could he be "married 5 kids and self employed farrier for 15 year" or rather "Director of bin.com, Microsoft "? The search goes on .
• Raoul Peck - no known tweets from the film director from Haiti sitting on the jury

Alec Baldwin's after-midnite film shot at Cannes Film Festival

Walking along the Croisette after midnite, ran into Alec Baldwin walking slowly along the Croisette towards the Carlton Hotel and being filmed chatting to a corpulent, very hollywood-looking companion. It seems this is part of the work on Baldwin's Cannes Film festival documentary called "Seduced and Abandoned" which is following Baldwin and his partner looking for funding for a movie during the festival, interviewing several director's along the way to determine the current state of cinema - deadline.com has all the details.