Cannes 2009

The director accepted the award – his third major prize at the festival – from jury president Isabelle Huppert who starred in his 2001 prize winner La Pianiste. The film tells the story of a life in a small German town beset my tragedies and strange occurences as the First World War approaches.

Speaking about the win, Haneke said that he could finally tell his wife: “I can say this is a moment where I am truly happy.” The film is handled by France’s Les Films du Losange for international sales; Sony Pictures Classics has US distribution rights.

SPC also has US rights to Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet, which won the Grand Jury Prize but failed to score any other awards despite lead actor Tahar Rahim having been heavily favored. The top actor honour went to Christoph Waltz for his portrayal of Colonel Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. The stunned Waltz thanked his director saying, “You gave me my vocation back.” In keeping with his character’s linguistic prowess, Waltz mixed French, German and English into his speech.