Sharon puts the shine into Cannes

She spoke tearfully of her acting teacher Roy Land who died of AIDS five years ago quot;to the dayquot;. It was Land who had made her what she was, she said, quot;and it8217;s still hard to talk about itquot;.

She delighted a press conference earlier with her comments about motherhood.quot;If it is as rewarding as it was to play a mother, then it8217;s got to be good,quot; said the actress who plays a mom in The Mighty.

Asked if she and her second husband, newspaper editor Phil Bronstein, had anyplans on that front, she laughed: quot;You know, we just have sex constantly.quot;

First among Firsts

This year8217;s festival will be remembered for its record number of world premiere screenings, according to festival director Gilles Jacob. By the festival8217;s own count, there were 45 world premieres in the official programme of competition films, special screenings and the non-competitive Un Certain Regard section, out of a possible 58.

The 78 per cent proportion of premieres is an all-time record, Jacob noted.

quot;It wasn8217;t planned that way, it just happened,quot; he mused. quot;It was a good production year. Who knows what will happen next year?quot; Several leading directors during the festival said they had particularly targeted their films towards a Cannes premiere.

Jacob noted that the Hollywood studios had finally taken notice of the abundant launch possibilities provided by the festival opening and closing night slots. The festival closes on Sunday with the European premiere of the multi-million dollarmonster movie Godzilla.

Debut winners

The festival awarded its first prizes to two first-time directors, the Lebanese filmmaker Ziad Doueiri and the American Marc Levin. Doueiri won the Francois Chalais Prize, named after a prominent French journalist, for West Beyrouth, a story of adolescence that opens on the day civil war broke out in Lebanon in April 1975. The prize is awarded to the best debut fiction film addressed to world issues.

Levin8217;s Slam, which took the French Confederation of Art Cinemas CICAE Award, tells of a talented young slam singer learning to find himself through his music and his love for a woman.

Both features formed part of the Directors8217; Fortnight programme, and are eligible for the festival8217;s prestigious Golden Camera award for best first feature.

The Palm D8217;Or contenders are Ken Loach8217;s A Man Called Joe, first-time director Erick Zonca8217;s La Vie Revee Des Agnes, Roberto Benigni8217;s Life is Beautiful and Tsai Ming-Liang8217;sdifficult-to-understand The Hole.

Benigni8217;s big

Italian director Roberto Benigni has been invited to Israel to present his controversial La Vita E Bella Life is Beautiful, screened in competition at Cannes, at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

The mayor of Jerusalem has announced that he is awarding Benigni with a special commendation for quot;furthering the universal understanding of Jewish historyquot;. La Vita E Bella is about an Italian family sent to a concentration camp during the Second World War. It raised some hackles at Cannes among critics who considered that it treated one of the most tragic events in modern history with unseemly levity.

Some Israeli critics have reviewed the film favourably. Benigni and his co-star Nicoletta Braschi are to attend the screening of the film in Jerusalem on July 10.