Cannes Winners Announced: July and Jarmusch Win Big

I snuck out of a graduation party to watch IFC's live coverage of tonight's Cannes closing ceremonies (which will be rebroadcast tonight at 8PM EST). Quick notes before I go back to the finger sandwiches and prosecco:

• Red carpet. Annette Insdorf and Roger Ebert narrate for IFC. Insdorf is doing the French translation, Ebert is doing ... the Roger Ebert.
• Ebert thinks Match Point is "amongst Woody Allen's top three films ... I put it right up there with Annie Hall and Crimes and Misdemeanors."
• Ebert says Wim Wenders once told him why he won't show a film at Cannes out of cometition: "It's like using birth control: You can have a lot of fun that way, but you can't make a baby."

• Ebert explains that at Cannes, red carpet arrivals really do mean something: "If you are invited back to the festival, you are not to be disapointed" - so chances are everyone who is walking into this auditorium is going to win something, and anyone who isn't is out of luck.
• The awards start.
• The shorts jury awards a Special Mention prize goes to the Austrailian Clara; Palme D'Or to Wayfarers, from the Ukraine.
• Milla Jovovich and Abbas Kiarostami present the Golden Camera (best first film) to two films: the Sri Lankan Forsaken Land, and Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know. Miranda is wearing a beautiful blue, sparkly vintage dress. "I'm still surprised that I got into this festival," she stammers. "To get such recognition for the first one, it's like someone saying, "This way that you are? It's okay, you can go on now." Ebert predicts that Me and You will be "the Sideways of this year. "
• Emir Kusterica comes out to introduce the rest of the Palme D'or jury.
• Jury Prize (basically, second runner-up) goes to Shanghai Dreams, by Xiaoshuai Wang. "You're giving me a precious prize, because today is my birthday," he says to much applause.
• Zhang Ziyi comes out to present the Screenplay prize to Guillermo Arriaga for The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, the film directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones. "I would like to share it with all the Mexicans, especially the Mexicans who cross the border looking for a better life." Ebert says Arriaga is Jones' "hunting buddy."
• Kristin Scott Thomas presents the Director prize to Michael Haneke, for Hidden. As Ebert says, "He was thought to be the frontrunner [for the Palme D'or], so he may be quite disapointed" with this somewhat lesser prize.
• The Best Actor prize will be presented by Penelope Cruz. It goes to Tommy Lee Jones. Ebert syas, "Tommy Lee JONES! This is a surprise and a triumph."
• Ralph Fiennes - who is visibly balding - presents Best Actress to Hanna Lasla, the star of the Israeli film Free Zone.  Insdorf says this actress is a stand-up comedian, and this role, as a cab driver who takes Natalie Portman into Jordan, is her first serious one. "I have to share this prize with my director, Amos Gitai," Lasla says. "He believed that a very good comedian is also a very good drama actor ... he gave me the chance. I want to share this with my mom, who is a holocaust survivor ... and the victims from both sides, the Israeli and Palestinians...and it's about time that we should sit, and have a conversation, and try to solve the problem."
• The Grand Jury - first runner-up - prize goes to Jim Jarmusch for Broken Flowers. He gives a long speech, complimenting several of his competing directors.
• Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank come out to present the Palme D'or. They do a really annoying "comedy" bit about how they just both won Oscars ... ugh. Ugly Americans. It goes to The Child by the Dardenne Brothers. The Belgium directors say they want to dedicate their award to their driver who is currently "imprisoned in Iraq."

And then it's over ... blissfully soon after it began.