Cannes 2010 results are in!

We have just got back from the Palais, where the main awards of the 2010 Cannes Film Festival were dished out tonight. An Indie Movies fave from this year's line-up, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives won the Palme d'Or for its Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and there were wins too for acting stars Javier Bardem and Juliette Binoche.

Hosted by the flawlessly bilingual Kristen Scott-Thomas, the ceremony took place in the Grand Théâtre Lumière about three hours ago (we have been snared up in the post-awards press conference since, details of which will be published shortly). Tragically, the Indie Movies team are too scruffy and unkempt to be granted access to such a glamorous event so we made do with watching on the televisions in the main section of the Palais. Even from there, it was impossible not to notice that Burton missed every single cue to stand up and announce each category winner, with Scott-Thomas finally resorting to calling "Tim!" across the stage to wake him up. 

The first award we saw being announced was the Caméra d'Or, for the best first feature film, and this was handed over by the man also charged with judging that category this year, Gael Garcia Bernal, to Michael Rowe for his movie Leap Year, which exhibited as part of Director's Fortnight. Next up was the Jury Prize, presented by Asia Argento, and won by A Screaming Man, directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun – a man who can not only feel well pleased about the reception afforded to his movie, but also his moustache, which is marvellously full and bushy.

Kirsten Dunst was next to emerge onstage, in an eye-catching turquoise dress, and she proceeded to present the Prix de la Mise en Scène for the best director to Mathieu Amalric for Tournée (a movie in which I actually preferred the erstwhile Bond baddie's acting to his directing, but there you go). After Amalric and Dunst had departed the stage, Emmanuelle Devos gave out the Prix de Scénario to Lee Chang-Dong for Poetry, another winner that we really did not see coming, feeling that performances were stronger than script.

There was a resounding home victory in the next category, as Guillame Canet presented the Best Actress award to Juliette Binoche for Certified Copy. This was considered another minor upset by the IndieMovies team, for although Emma had said in her review that 'Binoche is charming as always', she had strongly tipped Lesley Manville for this honour for her turn in Mike Leigh's Another Year. In her lengthy acceptance speech, Binoche highlighted the plight of hunger-striking Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, news of whose detention had her in tears at the Certified Copy press conference earlier in the week.

The Best Actor field was presented by Canet's ex-wife Diane Kruger (European cinema really is a bloody small world sometimes), with Javier Bardem and Elio Germano sharing the top honours for Biutiful and Our Life respectively. Emma remarked in her review of Biutiful that 'Bardem's performance must have been noted by the Cannes jurors and it's possible he may get a nod for his work', and we had suggested that Bardem and Germano were both front-runners for this award in our predictions videocast this afternoon. As delighted as he must have been to get his paws on the trophy, Germano will be a tad miffed when he watches the tape back and realises the cameraman missed the start of his speech because he was too busy gazingly lovingly at Bardem's missus, Penelope Cruz.

With Salma Hayek next giving over the Grand Prix to Xavier Beauvois for his thoughtful fact-based drama Of Gods & Men (another flick we had tipped to do well in the vid-cast), there was only the big one, the Palme d'Or left to award. Charlotte Gainsbourg handled that one, bestowing a deserved Golden Palm on Apichatpong Weerasethakul for his Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, a film which I suggested was 'if not the dark horse for the Palme d'Or, then at least the dark monkey with the red eyes.'

Even with the results out, we will still be posting the last of our Cannes 2010 news and reviews over the next couple of days, including the interview I did with the Palme d'Or winner himself, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, on Saturday afternoon.