Austrian Michael Haneke wins Palme d’Or in Cannes

CANNES, France, (Reuters) – Austrian director Michael  Haneke won the Palme d’Or (Golden Palm) for best picture at the  Cannes film festival yesterday for “The White Ribbon”, an eerie,  black-and-white exploration of the roots of Nazi terror.

Haneke’s first top prize at the world’s biggest film  festival is likely to prove popular among the thousands of  critics and journalists in the French Riviera resort for the  12-day movie marathon.

The White Ribbon, set in a village in northern Germany,  follows a series of sinister crimes for which a group of  children, cruelly disciplined by their parents, emerge as the  prime suspects.

“My wife sometimes ask me a very female question — ‘Are you  happy?” the 67-year-old told the closing awards ceremony.

“It’s very difficult to reply, I find, because happiness is  a rare thing, but now I can say, this is a moment in my life  when I am really happy.”   France’s Charlotte Gainsbourg won the best actress award for  her courageous performance in Lars von Trier’s “Antichrist”,  while the best actor award went to Austria’s Christoph Waltz for  his flamboyant performance as an SS officer in Quentin  Tarantino’s World War Two caper “Inglourious Basterds”.

The best director award went to Filipino Brillante Mendoza,  who presented “Kinatay” in the festival.

Mei Feng, the writer on Chinese director Lou Ye’s “Spring  Fever”, picked up the best screenplay award.