Animal Planet: Icelandic film ‘Rams’ wins Cannes’ globe-spanning Un Certain Regard contest

CANNES, France – “Rams,” a drama set among farmers and their sheep in a remote Icelandic valley, won the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard competition on Saturday.

Jury president Isabella Rossellini said Grimur Hakonarson’s film was being honoured for “treating in a masterful, tragicomic way the undeniable bond that links all humans to animals.”

There were 19 films in the Un Certain Regard competition, which honours new directors and more offbeat films than those up for Cannes’ main Palme d’Or prize.

The second-place Jury Prize went to Croatian director Dalibor Matanic for “Zvizdan” (“The High Sun”), which explores love and ethnic hatred in the Balkans. Matanic dedicated the prize to his producer, his wife and his soon-to-be-born daughter.

“I hope she will live in a better and far more tolerant world,” he said.

The jury bestowed the directing prize on Kiyoshi Kurosawa for “Journey to the Shore,” and also gave awards to “Treasure,” by Romania’s Corneliu Porumboiu, “Nahid” by Iranian director Ida Panahandeh and “Masaan” by India’s Neeraj Ghaywan.

Actress-director Rossellini said serving on the jury had been “like taking a flight over the planet and seeing all its inhabitants and their emotions.”

“I think we are the envy of every anthropologist,” she said.