2009 Kodak Winners at Cannes

Kodak was the image capture medium of choice for many of this year's winning films at the Festival de Cannes when the world's most prestigious film event handed out its awards on Sunday, May 24.

This year's Palme d'Or winner is Austrian director Michael Haneke, whose The White Ribbon (Das Weiss Band) marked a return to German-language filmmaking for the director of Caché. Set in northern Germany in the years before World War I, this black-and-white feature also won the FIPRESCI international critics prize.  Haneke and director of photography Christian Berger shot on Kodak color negative film, and used DI to transform the film to black-and-white in support of its period feel.

The film festival jury described director Warwick Thornton's Camera d'Or-winning film Samson and Delilah as "the best love film we've seen for many a year."   In his feature film debut, Thornton creates a tale of young love in a troubled indigenous community.  Serving also as director of photography on the movie, Thornton trusted Kodak to help bring his creative vision to the screen.  He also utilized postproduction services at Atlab, a Kodak Imagecare Program-certified laboratory (now a Deluxe facility). 
  
Jacques Audiard's French film, A Prophet, won the Cannes Grand Prix.  A Prophet (Un Prophète) follows a French-Arab youth as he rises through the criminal ranks in prison.  Audiard filmed this gritty, crime drama using a variety of different stocks, including Kodak color negative, as well as utilizing Imagecare Program-certified lab services at French laboratory E'clair. 

The only American film to claim an award this year was Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds.  Set in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, the film won Best Actor for Christoph Waltz who plays a Nazi colonel fluent in four languages.  Tarantino and cinematographer Robert Richardson, ASC used Kodak film, as well as Kodak Imagecare Program-certified services at ARRI GmbH in Munich.

This year's Jury Prize, Un Certain Regard, went to went to Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu's Police, Adjective. Three years ago, Porumboiu's film 12:08 East of Bucharest won him Cannes' prestigious Camera d'Or prize for a first-time feature.   The Kodak film stock Porumboiu received as part of his 2006 Camera d'Or prize package was used to create his latest award-winning feature, Police, Adjective. 

Other winners this year who trusted Kodak with their award-winning images include: