Lesbian love story wins at Cannes

LESBIAN love story Blue is the Warmest Colour(La Vie d'Adele - Chapitre 1 & 2) has won the Palme d’Or, the supreme award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Steven Spielberg, the jury president, announced the result to massive cheers and broke the Cannes tradition that only one Palme d’Or is awarded by saying the award would be shared by director Abdellatif Kechiche and stars Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux.

He said that without Adèle and Léa, which contains several explicit love scenes, the film would not have worked. He said it carried “a very strong message, a very positive message".

The award was made on the same day as between 150,000 and one million demonstrators against gay marriage took to the streets in Paris and Spielberg said the award was not a political statement, although he supported gay marriage.

American Bruce Dern, 76, won the best actor award for Alexander Payne's film Nebraska where he plays an alcoholic father on a road trip with his son.

French actress Bérénice Bejo took best actress award a year after hosting the Cannes opening and closing ceremonies. She won for Iranian director Asghar Farhadi's The Past(Le Passé).

In Paris, anti-gay marriage protest parades set off from three locations in the capital to converge on Les Invalides.

Despite being shepherded by 4,500 police, clashes with Right-wing extremists broke out once the demonstration ended and nearly 300 arrests were made.
Photo: © FDC-LOB