Ceylan dedicates Palme d'or to massacred youngs and Soma
NEWS CENTER (DİHA) - The film "Winter Sleep" won the top Palme d'Or prize for director Nuri Bilge Ceylan at the 67th Cannes International Film Festival on May 24, with the famous director dedicating his award to all those killed in the Gezi Park protests and others in the past year in Turkey and mineworkers killed in Soma disaster.
The lengthy, philosophizing "Winter Sleep," a domestic drama, was among the favorites in Cannes. "This is the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Turkish cinema. This is an incredibly beautiful coincidence. I thank Thierry Fremaux, Gilles Jacob and Jane Campion very much. I dedicate this award the young people in Turkey and those who lost their lives in the last year," Ceylan said.
'Someone steps down'
"In Japan, when someone dies in an industrial accident, someone steps down. In Turkey this is not the case. I don't know why, perhaps it is a cultural difference," Ceylan said in the press conference, referring to the Soma mining disaster. The Soma mining disaster, worst ever of its kind in Turkey's history, had claimed 301 lives last week. Ceylan was previously recognized as best director at the festival in 2008 with his movie Three Monkeys (Üç Maymun) and also twice received the Grand Prix Award - the second most-prestigious prize at Cannes - in 2003 and 2011.
In Turkey, Kurdish director and author Yılmaz Güney the top Palme d'Or prize with his named "Yol (Road)" in 1982.
The second-place prize went to Italian director Alice Rohrwacher for "Le Meraviglie" (The Wonders) while Canadian director Xavier Dolan's film "Mommy" shared the third-place prize with octogenarian French director Jean-Luc Godard's "Adieu au Langage" (Goodbye to Language). American director Bennett Miller won the best director award for "Foxcatcher", British actor Timothy Spall won best actor for Mike Leigh's film "Mr Turner" and Julianne Moore was named best actress in David Cronenberg's "Maps to the Stars".
(nt)
