An Irish-made film took the top prize at the 59th Cannes Film Festival last night when the coveted Palme d'Or was presented to English director Ken Loach for the Irish War of Independence drama, The Wind that Shakes the Barley.
This is the first time a film made in Ireland has taken the world's most prestigious film festival's top award.
"This is extraordinary," Loach told The Irish Times last night, after accepting the award. "I hope that Ireland feels that it's their film. It is their film. The co-operation we received when we were making the film in Ireland was remarkable.
"The premiere in Cork on June 20th is going to be something else. I'm knocked out by the news. I was doing the garden this morning and about to take the rubbish to the tip when I got a call asking me to get on a plane back to Cannes for the awards."
Written by Scottish lawyer-turned-screenwriter Paul Laverty, the film is set in the early 1920s and charts the divisions that follow the signing of the Treaty. The experiences of a rural Cork guerrilla force of Flying Columns serve as the dramatic conduit in a film where the recurring, twisting theme of taking sides is evident from the innocuous first scene of a hurling match.
The film was shot entirely in Ireland - in Cork and Kerry. In the leading roles are Cork actor Cillian Murphy and screen newcomer Padraic Delaney, who is from Adamstown, Co Wexford. They play brothers caught up in the conflict, with Liam Cunningham as a Dublin train driver whose avid socialism was inspired by seeing James Connolly "set the place alight" at the 1913 lock-out.
The decision of the Cannes jury was unanimous, the jury president, Chinese director Wong Kar-wai, said last night. The other jury members included actors Tim Roth, Helena Bonham Carter, Zhang Ziyi and Monica Bellucci. The film was one of the first of the 20 competition entries to be screened at Cannes. It had its world premiere at the festival on the second night, May 18th, and it received a 10-minute standing ovation.
There was more good news for Ireland at Cannes when the British film Red Road took a runner-up award, the Prix du Jury. A tense psychological thriller set in Glasgow, it is the first feature film produced by Carrie Comerford, who is Irish, and is directed by English filmmaker Andrea Arnold.
"I'm absolutely delighted with the award," Ms Comerford, who is from Dublin, told The Irish Times. "It was a hard film to make. It's great that it got a prize and that the Ken Loach film won the Palme d'Or. It's a great night for the Irish."