Arab directors took the lion's share of the plaudits last Tuesday at the San Sebastian Film Festival with Palestinian effort Salt of This Sea by Anne-Marie Jacir and Recycle by Jordan's Mahmoud al-Massad sharing the Cinema in Movement award.
"I am very honored to have received this award," said al-Massad.
The pair will receive help in putting the final post-production touches to their works as a reward.
For Salt of This Sea, that will consist of help at the Moroccan Cinematographic Center, as well as US$21,150 of aid while Recycle will receive a similar sum and be entitled to post-production work at the National Center of French Cinematography.
Also in the limelight was Hong Kong director Pang Ho-Cheung (彭浩翔) for Exodus, a film about a secret organization of women seeking to wipe out men. "I had this idea for a film after seeing women go off to the bathroom together," volunteered Pang, 34.
"I always wondered what they were talking about among themselves and what they were conspiring about."
Michael Douglas, who's been a movie star in four consecutive decades, knows his new film King of California, in some ways represents the end of his film career as a popular romantic leading man.
While a pair of his peers, Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis, have recently reprised their action roles in another Rocky and Die Hard film, Douglas doesn't have one of those franchise parts to repeat.
"King of California is an independent film where I play a mentally disturbed person who reunites with his teenage daughter and attempts to enlist her help in looking for treasure he believes is buried under a department store," explains the actor-producer who starred in and guided such international hits as Romancing the Stone, Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct.
Married to Oscar-winning actress (Chicago) Catherine Zeta-Jones, with whom he shares a birthday, the son of legendary filmmaker Kirk Douglas turned 63 last Tuesday.
Though Douglas hasn't had a huge hit movie since 2001 thriller Don't Say a Word, he remains the only person in history to have won Academy Awards for acting (Best Actor in Oliver Stone's Wall Street) and producing (1975's Best Picture One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest).
The selection of Eklavya: The Royal Guard, a damp squib at the box office, to represent India as its contender for best foreign film at the Oscars has elicited protests from the makers of a competing movie and the film fraternity, who accused the jury of "flouting rules" and "politicization," news reports said.
The Film Federation of India unanimously chose Eklavya, a film starring superstar Amitabh Bachchan as a royal guard whose loyalty and past are tested in a saga of palace intrigue set in India's western state of Rajasthan.
However, director Bhavna Talwar, who wanted to see her film Dharam (Religion) selected, alleged the jury flouted rules by opting for an open ballot instead of a secret one, which is the norm. She also slammed the winner.
"It's all about personal agendas," Talwar told the news agency IANS. "I've seen Eklavya. I couldn't connect with any of the characters."
She added that she had taken her film, about a Hindu priest whose adoption of a child leads to introspection about the true meaning of Hinduism, to a number of film festivals. "Which significant festival has Eklavya gone to?" she asked.
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