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Cannes 2012: Turkey’s Nuri Bilge Ceylan to be given Golden Coach

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The Cannes Film Festival announced Tuesday that it will award this year’s Carrosse d’Or to Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan. The news means that the award will be given to a filmmaker from the Middle East for the second consecutive year; in 2011 the festival handed it to embattled Iranian director Jafar Panahi.

Administered by the Director’s Fortnight section of the festival, the Carrosse d’Or (Golden Coach), is given every year to a world director for the ‘courage and independent-mindedness’ of his or her work. Clint Eastwood and David Cronenberg are among the previous winners.

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Ceylan, 53, is known for his austere dramas about human loneliness and alienation. He shoots films at a low budget and often uses friends and family as actors, in the manner of American auteur John Cassavetes. Ceylan’s most recent film, ‘Once Upon a Time in Anatolia,’ concerned a group of men looking for a dead body in the wilderness of the mountainous Turkish region; it came out in limited release in the U.S. earlier this year.

Ceylan will be honored on May 17, the opening day of the Fortnight, when he will also give a master class in directing.

Ceylan is a frequent prize winner on the Croisette, winning the jury prize in 2011 and 2002 (for ‘Once Upon a Time in Anatolia’ and ‘Distant,’ respectively) and best director in 2008 (‘Three Monkeys’).

The Cannes Film Festival opens May 16 with Wes Anderson’s ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ and runs through May 27.

ALSO:

Review: ‘Once Upon a Time in Anatolia’ is no fairy tale

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-- Steven Zeitchik

twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT

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