Deville's 'Sachs' wins top French crix prize
'Eyes' takes home best foreign film nod
"Maladie" is the story of a lone country doctor's efforts to comfort his patients, without internalizing their symptoms.
The Prix Moussinac for best foreign film released in Gaul in 1999 went to Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut."
The crix union, whose 230 members select winners from a comprehensive ballot that lists the previous year's theatrical releases, had 138 French and 391 foreign pix (190 of them American) from 48 countries from which to choose.
The top two French runners-up were Bruno Dumont's "Humanity" -- which scored three prizes and provoked lively dissension at Cannes -- and Patrice Leconte's free-wheeling "The Girl on the Bridge," due out soon in the U.S. from Sony Classics.
In the foreign corner, Cannes top prize winner "Rosetta" from Belgium's Dardenne brothers was first runner-up, followed by a tie between Pedro Almodovar's "All About My Mother" and Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line."
Indie-minded Yank efforts -- David Lynch's "The Straight Story," Jim Jarmusch's "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai" and Spike Jonze's "Being John Malkovich" -- filled the next three slots.
Deville, for whom "Sachs" marks a critical comeback after several so-so outings, won on two prior occasions, for "Peril en la Demeure" (1985) and "Dossier 51" (1978).
Honored as the best film book to appear in French translation was Variety Chief Film Critic Todd McCarthy's hefty biography "Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood" -- published in auteur-savvy Gaul as just plain "Hawks."
