Ten Canoes wins Cannes jury prize

Cannes (France): Australian director Rolf de Heer's language film Ten Canoes has won a prize at the Cannes International Film Festival.

The special jury prize, awarded to films in the festival's Un Certain Regard program, was awarded by the division's five-member jury on Sunday night.

Ten Canoes was one of 24 films nominated in the Un Certain Regard program.

The prize is separate from the festival's much coveted Palme d'Or gong.

Ten Canoes this week had benn praised by industry Press, with the Hollywood Reporter labelling the offering a "richly layered film".

The guessing game for the Palme d'Or will soon be over at the Cannes film festival, with the award ceremony finally confirming which out of 20 main competition entries will walk away with the coveted prize.

Virtually from the first day Spanish director Pedro Almodovar's Volver has been the frontrunner among the thousands of critics and journalists in the French Riviera resort for the world's biggest cinema shindig.

Starring Penelope Cruz as an overworked young mother, the bitter-sweet tale of abuse, abandonment and reconciliation is marginally ahead of Mexican Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's powerful Babel, in which Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett feature.

Another contender is US filmmaker Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, which despite a rough ride from the press on its first screening when it was booed, has won fulsome praise from French critics.

Kirsten Dunst stars as the ill-fated French queen, and Coppola takes a lavish look at the costumes and court conventions of the 18th century while using New Romantic music in the soundtrack to give it a contemporary twist.

But with the Cannes jury's reputation for shunning movies that are too populist, all three films may suffer from their commercial appeal.

That could bolster the chances of critically acclaimed arthouse fare like Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Climates, in which the director and his wife star as a couple whose relationship is reflected in the changing seasons.

Red Road, by first-time British filmmaker Andrea Arnold, has also impressed reviewers, and, if it fails to take the main prize, is still favourite for the Camera d'Or, the annual award to a debut film.

Some of the other favourites at Cannes are Lights in the Dusk by Finland's Aki Kaurismaki, French films Charlie Says and Days of Glory, Briton Ken Loach's The Wind That Shakes the Barley about the Irish struggle for independence and Lou Ye's Summer Palace from China.

French critics have not written off Belgian director Lucas Belvaux's The Right of the Weakest, and two late entries — Uruguayan director Israel Adrian Caetano's hard-hitting Buenos Aires 1977 and adult fantasy Pan's Labyrinth by Mexico's Guillermo Del Toro were well received.

Cannes notoriously fussy critics were generally complimentary about this year's main competition, which, if not a classic, was widely considered as strong.

There was also a particularly strong line-up this year of leading female roles, with Cruz, Blanchett and Kate Dickie among those impressing jurors.

"I think it's a good year for women," Samuel L Jackson, who is on the nine-member jury, said.

"There are a lot of good films, a lot of good roles and we have actually seen some strong performances by a lot of women. We are having a hard time finding the best actress," Jackson added.

The award ceremony will wind up 12 hectic days of screenings, publicity, parties and deal-making along the famed Croisette waterfront, giving organisers time for a breather before looking ahead to next year's gala 60th Cannes festival.