Filipino Director Brillante "Dante" Mendoza won 2009 Cannes' Best Director

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Filipino Director Brillante "Dante" Mendoza bagged Best Director award in the 2009 Cannes International Film Festival.

Mendoza's social reality dark movie "Kinatay (“butchered”)", notably features corrupt cops hacking a prostitute to pieces with blunt kitchen knives.

The Filipino filmmaker bested big names like Quentin Tarantino, Ang Lee, Jane Campion and many more...

It stars Coco Martin, Mercedes Cabral, Maria Isabel Lopez, Lauren Novero and John Regala.

The award the Mendoza received are not all glory, the nine-member jury got into deep discussion and objections.

According to Variety, All three of the Asian kudos drew heavy booing from the assembled press corps. Biggest scorn was reserved for the director prize for Filipino Brillante Mendoza's rape-and-dismemberment drama "Kinatay" (of which even admiring jury member Hanif Kureishi admitted, "I don't ever want to see it again, myself"), followed by jeers for "Thirst" and mainland Chinese director Lou Ye's "Spring Fever," which copped screenplay (generally seen as its weakest element).

These awards appeared to have reflected deep divisions within the nine-member jury, which, apart from Huppert, included directors James Gray, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Lee Chang-dong, writer Kureishi, and actresses Robin Wright Penn, Shu Qi, Asia Argento and Sharmila Tagore.

Before the awards ceremony, rumors were already circulating that jury discussions had been particularly fraught. One member described it as the worst jury experience he'd ever had, while another was said to have described Huppert as a "fascist." Onstage, Huppert, looking visibly tense, referred to "an unforgettable week" and "several hours, uh, several moments of deliberation."

Posted in: Dante Mendoza