'Grace' gets Deauville nod
Big stash for 'Maria' at fest
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"Maria," a gritty Spanish-lingo tale from debuting American scripter-helmer Joshua Marston, took the fest's grand prize, Int'l critics prize and audience prize. Pic concerns a teenaged girl from Colombia recruited as a drug mule.
Jury prize went to Nicole Kassell's "The Woodsman," the Kevin Bacon starrer about a reformed child molester. A deal for French distribution looked imminent at the fest's close.
In another post-"Brown Bunny" example of turning a contested film into a contest winner, Omar Naim's "The Final Cut" won the fest's new screenplay award. After a mixed reception in Berlin, Naim trimmed and rearranged the pic's element to yield a tighter, more touching film.
"Happy Now" is a comic look at an American housewife's eventful day at the beach by NYU student Frederikke Aspock, won in the short film competition. The Premiere magazine prize, given by a jury of readers, honored Michel Gondry's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."
The presence of Spielberg, Lucas and Coppola provided a major boost to the financially pinched fest, which saw sponsorship dip significantly this year from E700,000 to E500,000, out of a total 1.4 million ($1.7 million) budget.
Sporting shorter hair and thicker waistlines than they did three decades ago, Spielberg, Lucas and Coppola were prominent at the fest, partaking in gala evenings and dinners with Deauville's mayor and speaking with journos and fans.
At a screening of "The Godfather," a joint tribute to Coppola and Marlon Brando, Coppola spoke publicly about the actor for the first time since the thesp's death earlier this year.
"In an age when we toss around the word genius so often, he really had something of the genius about him," Coppola said.
Coppola also took a crowd-pleasing swipe at the Hollywood system for "making the same film over and over again," and he and Lucas promised digital technology would change that.
"The studios have such a lock on the films that get made," bemoaned Lucas, "but if you take away the issue of the huge amounts of money that it costs to make a movie, then it is going to be available to more people; it'll be more like writing novels."
At a tribute screening of his "THX 1138," Lucas was visibly touched by the enthusiastic reception. "It's great to be with people who care about films and care about the people who make them," Lucas said.
The producer-director was keen to stamp out any rumors of more pics in the "Star Wars" series after the upcoming "Episode III." "There really isn't any more story, and I am going to go off and do other kinds of movies" he said.
As for the Indiana Jones film series, a new writer is working on another episode, Lucas said, but after six years of failing to come up with a script, "We're just not going to make it unless it's really good."
The festival also paid tribute to Glenn Close, Malcolm McDowell, Richard D. Zanuck and Christine Vachon.
Other U.S. talent treading the seaside resort's boardwalk included Nicole Kidman, Stephen Soderbergh, Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon, Todd Haynes and Todd Solondz.
On Sunday, the fest's relationship with HBO made possible a free bigscreen unspooling of all six hours of Mike Nichols' "Angels in America," which was well received.
Pics frequently played to packed audiences in the fest's three theaters, with some 20,000 film fans paying to attend screenings alongside those in the biz -- up from 15,000 last year.
"Artistically we were up, materially we were down, although I don't believe it showed," fest director Bruno Barde said. "My only regret is not inviting Martin Scorsese."
