The winners have been announced and this 65th edition of the Cannes Festival is officially over. Slim pickins for the U.S., with the American Benh Zeitlin winning the only prize in the Official Selection, the Camera D'Or (for feature films being presented at Cannes for the first time). Let's hope for a stronger showing next year in Cannes. One of the surprises of the evening included the "A separation" actress Leila Hatami coming up on

As I type these lines there are rumors that “Mud,” by the American Jeff Nichols, may find its way to the top rungs of the competition prizes—some are even talking of a Palme D’Or upset. Matthew McConaughey, who came to the Croisette to present a film for the first time in his career, plays the Mud of the title, an enlightened vagabond living on a deserted island on the Mississipi river—his past is heavy with blunders. Two independent-

Eight years may not be that long to turn into film that most iconic of iconic novels, Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," the book that has launched many into sustained bouts of daydreaming. Because eight years is the time it took for the project to mature. Plus, the film was lensed by one of our better filmmakers and is based on the ultimate American myth, the road story (the open road is there for the taking, there’ll always be someone motoring

“All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring” (Chuck Palahniuk). I think that Chuck Palahniuk must be a fan of Leos Carax’s films. Because the diminutive French filmmaker’s “Holy Motors,” which is competing for the Palme D’Or, is never boring as his new film shows. “Holy Motors” represents everything that’s cinema ought to be: poetic, unpracticed in following convention and filled with mystery. He-

A fishing boat in which Senegalese men from different ethnic backgrounds will have to huddle for two weeks during an ocean crossing. Filmmaker Moussa Touré ‘s “La Pirogue,” currently shown in the Un Certain Regard section, wants to incite a dialogue between people confined in a small living space. But the stakes are very high, and the fiction film is very much based on reality. Thirty men (a mixture of Peuls, Guineans, and Muslims

A community slides into mass hysteria after accusations of child molesting surface. But instead of a full-blown witch-hunt or courtroom drama story we’re treated to a cool-headed and transfixing tale of a life coming undone. Thomas Vinterberg co-founded Dogme 95 along with Lars Von Trier and several others. He’s the brain behind “The Celebration,” having written and directed the 1998 feature film which came to embody the nascent

Opening shot: a bird’s eye view of Naples, with Mount Vesuvius in the background, as if God were gazing at his Creation. Director Matteo Garrone’s camera glides toward some unknown destination, a shot which is set to the sound of the enchanted Alexandre Desplat-composed score (in affect, at least, it’s reminiscent of the “Nutcracker Suite”). We get closer to earth when, steadily, a white horse-drawn carriage, festooned with tall