Not Clint Eastwood’s ‘Changeling,’ not Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Che.’ Not Charlie Kaufman’s ‘Synecdoche, New York’ and not even the rumored documentary ‘Waltz With Bashir’ went home with a Palme d’Or. It was the French picture ‘Entre les murs’ (’The Class’) that got the highest prize of the Cannes Film Festival. It’s a film about the high tension and energy in the classroom today, a hot topic in France.

“I think it would be good for all those people who claim to be able to judge youth … in two or three aphorisms to learn something new about youth,” the main actor of the movie said. Jury president Sean Penn called it “an amazing, amazing [...] virtually seamless film. All the performances, magic. All the writing, magic. It just touched us so deeply.“

As a consolation prize for Steven Soderbergh, Benicio del Toro was crowned Best Actor for leading in ‘Che.’ “I’d like to dedicate this to the man himself, Che Guevara,” he said. Clint Eastwood got his consolation prize in the form of a “special prize of the 61st Cannes Film Festival,” but he wasn’t at the ceremony to collect it.

Although there are plenty of summer blockbusters to go around this year, many critics are disappointed with Cannes’ main competition films. “Coming off another weak Berlin festival, there is a sense that 2008 is not going to be the best year for films,” Jay Weissberg of Variety said. “Even before the halfway mark, the general mood has been one of disappointment,” he added. Which might also explain why there aren’t as many sales at the Cannes Film Festival.

Most movies had mixed reactions. Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Che’ was loved by some, but said to be too long by others. Charlie Kaufman’s ‘Synecdoche, New York’ was deemed too weird. And while Clint Eastwood’s ‘Changeling’ created some very early Oscar buzz, it also disappointed a lot of critics at the festival. Lesser known documentary ‘Waltz With Bashir’ is seen as the potential winner of the Cannes Festival’s Palme d’Or. It’s an animated feature about the 1982 massacre of the Palestinians in Beirut.

‘Changeling,’ the new thriller by Clint Eastwood, is one of the three Hollywood titles standing out on the list of competitors for a Palme d’Or award. Then there is the Charlie Kaufman movie we mentioned earlier, called ‘Synecdoche, New York.’ And Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Che,’ a $40 million biopic about Che Guevara.

Outside the competition is Woody Allen, with his spanish comedy ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona.’ And of course the one and only Steven Spielberg with ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,’ still a way too long title.

You can find the full list of movies in competition after the jump.

Continue reading Eastwood, Allen and Soderbergh at Cannes