"The White Ribbon” won the top award, the Palme d’Or, at the 2009 Cannes Film Fest. The film, which plays at Telluride and Toronto Fests, will be released by Sony Classics in November.

Does White Ribbon explain how the Nazi philosophy was adopted?  It doesn’t explain it. It’s one of the sources of radical thinking. Once I thought about another title for the film, which was God's Right Hand, which means that these children take themselves for God’s right hand because they know the difference between good and evil and they have the right to judge others. This is always the beginning of terrorism.

Sony Classics–One of the Best Films of the Year

The title acts as a sort of injunction, moving people to consider something which isn’t necessarily developed in the film – namely, that we’re dealing with a little prophet, a new prototype of a guy.  Originally I wanted to find a French equivalent of “Gotta Serve Somebody” a Bob Dylan song which says that we are always in the service of someone. I liked the fatalism and the moral dimension of this title but I simply never found a satisfying translation, so it stayed A Prophet–Director Jacques Audiard.

Few filmmakers have explored in-depth the psychology of people (often law-breakers and criminals), caught in extreme circumstances with the dominating view and cinematic power of Michael Mann, as was evident in Thief, Manhunter, Ali and Heat to The Last of the Mohicans, Collateral, and Miami Vice.  His work has brought to the screen a series of iconic figures, embodied by the most commanding actors of our time, Pacino and de Niro, Daniel Day-Lewis, Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell.

In one of his most ambitious projects to date, the gangster saga “Public Enemies,” Mann directs one of the most gifted actors, working today, Johnny Depp, in the story of the short, dangerous life of John Dillinger.

Cannes Film Fest 2007–The cult Hong Kong director talks about his first English-speaking film, working with singer Norah Jones, the influence of American cinema and drama on his work, and the meaning of Cannes for his career.

The concept for “Vacancy” had been percolating in my imagination for almost eight years. While driving the back roads of New Mexico with my wife, I noticed a number of small, roadside motels that seemed to exist without any guests. I wondered how they stayed open, where else they got their money. The idea just kind of stayed with me–writer Mark L. Smith