Alibaba, The multibillion-dollar house that Jack built

The Chinese Internet tycoon Jack Ma once said he wants his self-made Alibaba Group Holding Ltd to last 102 years so the e-commerce company, founded in his apartment in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, in 1999, will still be around in 2101, meaning it will have spanned three centuries.

It is way too early to predict whether Ma's wish will come true, but at least one thing is not in doubt: Alibaba is a fabulously successful company, and as its 15th birthday nears, it finds itself in possession of more than 90 percent of China's online retail market. Recently it filed for what may become one of the largest initial public offerings in the United States.

"We are a very lucky company," Ma has often said. A large part of that luck, he says, boils down to the fact that it is a product of the Internet age, and that he has been on hand to make the most of that.

"In the industrial age, you needed to have a rich father to be successful," he says.

Not only did Ma not have a rich father, there is nothing in his family background giving the barest hint of the financial success that would one day be his. The 49-year-old got poor grades when he was in school. English was the only subject in which he excelled, and he was an English teacher until he happened upon the Internet industry on a trip to the United States as an interpreter in 1994.

Ma's excellent English appears to have been pivotal when he gave a six-minute presentation in 2000 that landed him a $20 million investment from SoftBank Corp of Japan.

After some web-based business attempts, he teamed up with 17 co-founders to build Alibaba in 1999 with a mission to make it easy for small and medium enterprises to "do business anywhere".

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Alibaba, which started as a business-to-business online platform to bridge the information gap between Chinese suppliers and international buyers, has grown into a huge e-commerce conglomerate. It functions like a combination of Amazon, eBay and PayPal.

Chinese online shoppers bought merchandise worth 1.542 trillion yuan ($248 billion) on Alibaba's online marketplaces, Taobao Marketplace, Tmall and Juhuasuan, last year.

Those online marketplaces accounted for 85.67 percent of China's total online shopping market and for about 6.5 percent of China's total retail sales.

Tian Hou, chief analyst with T. H. Capital LLC, a research and investment adviser in Beijing, who has followed the development of Alibaba for more than a decade, says that unlike Bill Gates, whose background was technical, and who knew how to take his company's products to the next level, the way Jack Ma builds Alibaba is based purely on his vision.

"Ma has built an entire virtual society, based on the e-commerce economy. There have been no benchmarks or guidelines for him to do this; all he has had to rely on is vision."

Alibaba's looming IPO has raised the company's profile among Wall Street investors, she says.

"For them, Alibaba is not just a leading e-commerce company in China anymore. The IPO is going to help it become one of the top companies in the world."

Alibaba's regulatory filing to the US Securities Exchange Commission gave a $1 billion placeholder value for the offering, but the real amount is expected to be far higher, possibly exceeding $20 billion, topping a $19.65 billion offering by Visa Inc in 2008, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Alibaba has not specified how many shares it will offer, their price, or a proposed IPO date, and it has not revealed whether it will be on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq.

But analysts say the IPO is likely to value Alibaba between $150 billion and $250 billion, which means it would be valued as low as the social media site Facebook or as high as the global retail giant Wal-Mart.

Porter Erisman, who worked as a vice-president at Alibaba.com and Alibaba Group between 2000 and 2008, says that when he first joined the company there was little hint that Alibaba would become as successful as it has.

"When I joined Alibaba back in 2000, Ma and his team had just moved out of the apartment. I was attracted by the unique dream the team had to build a global Internet company from China."

It seemed like a unique challenge, "and I couldn't resist being a part of it", says Erisman, who later turned his experience at Alibaba into an award-winning documentary, Crocodile in the Yangtze.

Erisman, who at various times led the company's international website operations, international marketing and corporate affairs, says Alibaba was not a team of all-stars.

"But Jack's great talent is in bringing together ordinary people to achieve extraordinary things. So in many ways he was more like a coach than a traditional boss.

"He always has high expectations of his team. And, like a good coach, he lets you know it when he is unhappy with your results, because he always expects 100 percent effort. Rather than having employees try to please him as a boss, he aligns the staff to chase a more important goal, such as building a platform which creates millions of jobs," he says, adding that when he left Alibaba in 2008, he felt that it was on its way to becoming a world-class company because it had survived some of the Internet's leaner times and survived a big battle with the e-commerce giant eBay.

Like e-Bay, Alibaba's platforms, for a long time, were free to customers. As a start-up company at the time, it needed to find investors.

So Ma brought in investment from SoftBank Corp in 2000 and Yahoo in 2005. In the following years Alibaba and Yahoo had rows that were eventually patched up.

Alibaba's strong business performance has become a key driver for Yahoo's share price. The $20 million that the SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son invested in Alibaba in 2000 is expected to make him one of the richest people in the world as SoftBank is Alibaba's largest shareholder with a 34.4 percent stake.

With the huge pile of money Alibaba is expected to raise from the IPO, the top question for Jack Ma is what is next for Alibaba. Michael Clendenin, managing director of RedTech Advisors LLC, a Shanghai-based IT consultancy, says Alibaba's IPO is unusual.

Jack Ma stepped down as chief executive officer in May last year, saying he was no longer young enough to run an Internet business, but he still serves as chairman of the board.

He is reported to write e-mails to Alibaba staff to encourage them in their work. In the first four months of this year, Alibaba Group and Ma invested a combined 37 billion yuan in various companies ranging from traditional media and video to department store operator, becoming one of the most aggressive investors among China's big three Internet giants, the other two being Tencent Holdings Ltd and Baidu Inc.

Vanessa Zeng, an analyst with Forrester Research in Beijing, says: "With frequent investments, such as its acquisition of AutoNavi and its strategic investment on Intime Retail Group Co and online video site Youku Tudou Inc, Alibaba has been trying to build a complete ecosystem that can compete with these competitors. "The challenge will lie in effectively integrating the properties it has newly acquired and invested in," Zeng says.

Ma has said in an intra-company email that Alibaba faces "unparalleled challenges and pressures" in the US IPO because of the scale, expectations, cultural clash and consciousness of national boundaries, geopolitics and economics.

Going public is not an end in itself, he says, but a way of ensuring the company keeps on advancing.

Colombia President Santos to Face Zuluaga in Runoff Vote

            The WSJ reports,"Óscar Iván Zuluaga, a conservative candidate closely allied with former President Álvaro Uribe, won the most votes in the first round of Sunday's presidential election with a campaign that criticized President Juan Manuel Santos's efforts to negotiate peace with Marxist guerrillas.

Mr. Zuluaga took 29.3% of the vote, or more than 3.7 million votes, to the president's 25.6%, or 3.3 million, the country's electoral authorities said, with nearly 100% of the votes counted. Mr. Zuluaga didn't capture the 50% needed to win outright, but he and Mr. Santos emerged from a field of five candidates and will go head-to-head in a second round on June 15.

In a speech before overjoyed supporters Sunday night, Mr. Zuluaga thanked Mr. Uribe, his mentor and partner in his fight against Mr. Santos, and suggested the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, would face a government that would give them no slack should he win the presidency.

"The president of the republic shouldn't be, can't be, manipulated by the FARC," Mr. Zuluaga said.

Mr. Santos, speaking at the same time from his campaign headquarters, told supporters that peace in this country of 47 million people hinges on his victory in the runoff.

"We all share the same dream," the 62-year-old economist and close ally of the Obama administration told the crowd at his campaign headquarters. "Peace unites us."

Absenteeism reached about 60% in what analysts called a sign of voter disgust with a campaign in which Mr. Zuluaga and Mr. Santos cast dirt at each other but offered few policy details. The other three candidates were a former defense minister, Martha Lucia Ramirez ; Clara Lopez from the leftist Democratic Pole party and Enrique Peñalosa, a former Bogotá mayor well known abroad for his urban-development schemes.

The results underscored the effectiveness that Mr. Zuluaga, a 55-year-old former finance minister, had in capitalizing on voter fatigue with the government's peace negotiations with the FARC, a rebel organization despised by many Colombians for its attacks on civilians and kidnappings.

A government team and rebel commanders have been negotiating in Cuba for 18 months, reaching agreement on three of five points in a framework that, once completed, would end a 50-year conflict. The two sides so far have agreed on development for the countryside, the creation of a political movement for FARC members and, most significantly for the U.S., working in tandem to fight cocaine trafficking. The U.S. since 2000 has provided more than $10 billion in mostly military and antinarcotics aid to fight drugs and weaken the rebels.

But Mr. Zuluaga and Mr. Uribe, who remains popular here for having eroded the guerrilla's power in two terms as president, characterized Mr. Santos as soft on the rebels. The two men have been particularly critical of Mr. Santos's plan to permit the FARC to form a political party, charging that guerrilla commanders would soon be legislating in congress instead of serving jail time for committing atrocities.

"If the president allows impunity for those who commit atrocities and crimes against humanity, then the message that will be transmitted is that it's the same to be honest as it is to be a criminal," Mr. Zuluaga said in his Sunday speech.

Analysts say the results Sunday could have a big impact on the peace talks. Mr. Zuluaga hasn't rejected negotiations with the FARC, but has suggested that they should take place on the condition that the guerrillas unilaterally end military operations".

IMF Christine Lagarde Says, "Central Banks May Have to Consider Financial Stability"

    The WSJ reports,"Central bankers around the world may have to take financial stability into greater account, in addition to their usual duties of keeping inflation low while maintaining close cooperation with each other, International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde said Sunday.

"We need to continue to strive for improved prudential frameworks for the financial sector so as not to overburden monetary policy," she said in prepared remarks to a conference in Portugal. "But where macroprudential policies fall short, monetary policy will have a larger role than in the past to maintain financial stability."

Ms. Lagarde acknowledged that a greater role in financial stability could pose a challenge to central bank independence, given the ambiguous nature of how to define these types of matters. One response would be to maintain the focus on keeping inflation low, while also considering steps such as maintaining monetary policies and those to ensure financial stability housed in different institutions.

Ms. Lagarde's speech opened a two-day conference sponsored by the European Central Bank in the ocean-side town of Sintra near Portugal's capital. The conference has gathered policy makers from central banks and other international bodies as well as top academic economists, making it many ways the ECB's version of the Kansas City Federal Reserve's annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

The IMF has in recent weeks urged the ECB to weigh more aggressive policy measures to combat the risks of too low inflation, or as the IMF has dubbed it, "lowflation." Major central banks typically target inflation rates around 2%. The problem occurs when it softens too far below that: debts become harder to finance for households, businesses and even governments, weighing on spending and investment".

Battle of the billionaires: Fisker's Lu takes on Tesla's Musk

There's a saying in the automotive industry: a great product with great customer support can carry the day.

That may well determine the outcome of a brewing donnybrook between Lu Guanqiu, the Chinese chairman and founder of auto-parts maker Wanxiang Group and the new owner of bankrupt Fisker Automotive Holdings, and Elon Musk, CEO of California's Tesla Motors.

Lu has said he wants to outsell Musk's Tesla in the US and in China, with Fisker's hybrid Karma sports car. "I'll put every cent that Wanxiang earns into making electric vehicles," Lu was quoted by Bloomberg News. "I'll burn as much cash as it takes to succeed, or until Wanxiang goes bust." For the record, Lu's personal worth is about $3.1 billion. That's a mere pittance, compared with Musk's wealth of $8.4 billion.

The automakers' star products are not for the cost-conscious. Tesla's made-in-Silicon Valley Model S has a US manufacturer's suggested retail price of $69,900. The Finland-made Karma sold for around $103,000 before Fisker filed for bankruptcy late last year. In China, where Tesla operates a vast Beijing store, its newly introduced Model S-60 retails for 648,000 yuan, or $104,000.

Analysts have said that if Lu were to build and peddle a Fisker electric in China, the world's largest automotive market by sales, he would have an edge over Musk in obtaining government financing from the Chinese government. Musk, however, has been selling electric cars in the country since last November and is building a network of charging stations to help motorists conquer "range anxiety", a major obstacle for potential buyers.

"The road is still very long," Lu was quoted as saying. "We want to concentrate for now on manufacturing in the US. If I don't succeed, my son will continue with it. If he doesn't make it, my grandson will."

Born to peasants in 1945 in Hangzhou, Lu became an apprentice at a State-owned metalworks at the age of 15, before starting a flour mill in his village and, later, a bicycle repair shop. In 1969, Lu pooled money with six other farmers in to set up a tractor repair shop for his commune. Wanxiang took its Chinese name from the universal joints — a part used in drive shafts -— that it produced.

Lu quit a three-pack-a-day smoking habit to win a bet with a local steel-mill boss in order to secure supplies for his factory, he said, wincing at the memory. He hasn't smoked since, he said. "I said I would do it, and I did," he said, shifting between the local Xiaoshan dialect and heavily accented Mandarin.

Electrics, already a tough sell in China, have become an even tougher sell with the recent tying of graphite used in Tesla's batteries to China's pollution problems. Electrics use about 110 pounds of graphite, raising questions about what a price increase stemming from a government shutdown of graphite mines would do to an electric's sticker price.

The dirty story sullies the idea that the vehicles are good for the environment.

While China's smog issues have refocused attention on low-emission vehicles as a way to rid the country of a hazard to both human health and the country's economy, sales of electrics have been limited to government and corporate customers. Sales of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) in China in 2013 surged 38 percent from a year earlier to 17,600 units, including 14,604 pure electrics and 3,038 plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), according to statistics supplied by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. China Auto Web said the number represents an "insignificant" portion of China's nearly 22 million sales of new vehicles last year.

In 2013, the State Council called on China's auto industry to achieve production and sales targets of 500,000 pure-electric (battery-powered) and plug-in hybrid vehicles by 2015 and 10 times that number by the end of the next decade. "Most analysts now consider the goals unreachable," according to China Auto Web.

Regardless of who you like in this one, there's one thing that can't be denied. A couple of rich guys are ready to get it on.

Source: ChinaDailyUSA

China's Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises board sees fast growth

- China's SME board, a sub-board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange for the listing of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), has seen fast growth since its launch a decade ago, figures from the bourse showed on Sunday.

A total of 719 companies are now listed on the SME board, with a market value of 3.81 trillion yuan (618.5 billion U.S. dollars).

The number of listed companies was 19 times that in 2004, and the market value was more than 90 times that of ten years ago.

The board's market capitalization now accounts for over 40 percent of the total market value of all the listed companies on the Shenzhen bourse.

The SME board was inaugurated on May 27, 2004 to let China's smaller companies take advantage of the stock market and get much-needed capital.

The main boards of the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, as in other countries, have been primarily focused on large companies.

Over the past decade, SMEs got a funding of more than 700 billion yuan from the sub-board.

With an emphasis on private and high-tech firms, the SME board has become a unique and indispensable segment in China's multi-tier capital market system, according to the bourse.

Source: Xinhua

Pravda: Putin: "We plan to develop modern means of communication. And I hope that we will never return to the time when the primary means of communication was a Kalashnikov rifle,"

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia does not plan to impose restrictions on the use of the Internet. The restrictions, he added, may touch only the propaganda of suicide and pedophilia.

"We do not have any limitations associated with the self-expression of a human being, related to the use of modern technologies for one's own development, or for development of one's own business," Putin said at the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum.

"The restrictions have been introduced, but what are they about? They are about the prohibition of the propaganda of pedophilia, child pornography, and the propaganda of methods of suicide. Excuse me, but legal systems of other countries are full of such restrictions, and this applies to Europe and the United States," said Putin. Moreover, he said, such restrictions in those countries are much more stringent than in the Russian legislation.

Equating some bloggers to mass media complies with global trends in this area, and Russia simply closes loopholes in the law in this case, Putin said.

"This practice is used in European countries, in the UK and in Germany, the United States, and there is nothing unusual at this point. This is just a gap in our legislation that we are closing, and the application of these rules does not come contrary to world trends. Here, all is within the common trends," Putin said, answering questions at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum.

Russia has no plans to impose restrictions on the use of social networks, nor does it intend to criticize those who do it, Putin said. "First, we are not going to close anything. Secondly, we do not believe we have the right to criticize those who do it. In each case, there is a unique national aspect, and it is not up to us to judge what others do and how," the Russian president said, answering the question whether Russia could indeed ban Facebook, Twitter and their Russian analogues.

"We plan to develop modern means of communication. And I hope that we will never return to the time when the primary means of communication was a Kalashnikov rifle," said the president of the Russian Federation.

During the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, Putin made it clear to all present that Russia was tired of the debate with NATO about the deployment of the missile defense system of the alliance in dangerous proximity to Russian strategic objects.

"We are tired of this form of debate - there's no discussion," Putin said.

The head of state pointed out that those, who committed a coup in Ukraine, do not want to talk to Russia. "Here are our thoughts. The next step is Ukraine in NATO. They never ask us about it, nor do they conduct a dialogue with us. As experience of the past two decades shows - there's no dialogue, they only say - "none of your business, it doesn't concern you," Putin said.

According to him, the West can only assure Russia that the approach of NATO infrastructure to the Russian borders was not directed against Russia.

"Tomorrow, Ukraine may join NATO, and in the next few days, elements of U.S. missile defense system may appear in Ukraine. No one ever talks to us on this subject," concluded the president.

Vladimir Putin said that he had no idea about how the fate of Edward Snowden may evolve. He assured that the ex-CIA officer had not told anything to Russian security services.

"I do not even know. He is a young guy, I don't know how he is going to live. I'm saying this without any jokes or irony. For the time being, he is here, but then what?" Putin said, answering questions at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum.

"We only gave him shelter and that's all. He is not our agent, he has not exposed any secrets to us. Bad guy, he could have shared something. We still gave him shelter, but he says nothing. He reveals his information through the channels that he knows, when he deems it necessary to publish something," said Putin.

Putin added that if U.S. intelligence agencies had acted professionally, Edward Snowden would have been in prison a long time ago. "Why did they frighten the whole world? They frightened all countries. Snowden arrived at our transit zone, and then it turned out that nobody wanted to take him. If they hadn't scared anyone, he would have flown somewhere, and they would have caught him on the way to another country. He'd be steaming in prison for a long time," said Putin.

Putin continued: "They frightened everyone, he stayed with us in the transit area, and what do we do? Russia is not the country that delivers human rights defenders."

According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, what happened in the Ukraine was a coup that led to chaos and civil war.

"Whatever you call it - a revolution, not a revolution - this is a coup, with the use of force and militants," Putin said.

According to the president, one should be as accurate as possible when it comes to the institutions of emerging countries. "Otherwise, there will be chaos. And we can see it now in Ukraine," he said.

"Why was it necessary to do all that, if Yanukovych agreed to everything?" Putin said.

"One should have gone to the polls, and the people, whom they have in power now,  would come to power, only legally. We, like idiots, would be paying 15 billion that we promised, keep low gas prices and continue to subsidize the economy of Ukraine further on," said the president.

Putin said that Moscow was ready to work with the government formed after the presidential election in Ukraine.

"We are still working with the people, who control the power today, but after the election, we will certainly work with the newly elected bodies," said the head of state, speaking at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum.

Putin said Moscow would like to see peace in Ukraine. "We are interested in seeing peace, order and tranquility in our - I mean no irony here - brotherly country of Ukraine," said the president.

Putin also said that Russia would respect the results of the presidential election in Ukraine. "We understand and see that the people in Ukraine want the country to come out of this protracted crisis. We also want, in the end, solace, and we will respect the choice of the Ukrainian people," said Putin.

China: 23 terror, religious extremism groups busted in Xinjiang

 Police in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Regions have busted 23 terror and religious extremism groups and caught over 200 suspects in May, according to the regional public security department on Sunday.

Source: Xinhua

Cannes 2014 : "Clouds of Sils Maria" An inquiry into cinema

     The NY Times reports, CANNES, France — There’s a scene in “Clouds of Sils Maria” in which a young American played by Kristen Stewart delivers a beautifully sincere defense of blockbusters to a French star played by Juliette Binoche. They’re talking about movies in a multilayered film from the French director Olivier Assayas that is itself partly an inquiry into cinema. The star, Maria Enders, has become famous in big movies, yet she also voices contempt for them. Given how closely Mr. Assayas cuts to a central tension that plays out yearly at the Cannes Film Festival — a temple of auteurist worship that rolls out the red carpet for industrial cinema — it isn’t surprising that “Sils Maria” wasn’t wholly embraced here. 

One of the strongest entries in the main competition, “Clouds of Sils Maria” pivots on Maria, a figure who, along with driving the narrative, engages in a struggle that expresses some of Mr. Assayas’s complex ideas about movies. Soon after the film opens, Maria learns that an old mentor, Wilhelm Melchior, a theatrical godhead somewhat inspired by Ingmar Bergman, has died. (Mr. Assayas, 59, a former critic for Cahiers du Cinéma, helped write a book on Bergman.) Accompanied by her assistant, Valentine (Ms. Stewart), Maria travels to Melchior’s home in Sils-Maria, an area in the Swiss Alps known for its haunting cloud formations and as where Nietzsche first came upon the idea of eternal recurrence. There, unsettled by death and her own mortality, Maria confronts the past, present and future. 

Last Thursday, I met Mr. Assayas on a yacht flying a flag for Arte, the European network that helped produce “Clouds of Sils Maria.” Yachts are part of the semiotic landscape at Cannes, emblems of privilege that are scattered over the harbor and moored at the jetty next to the festival headquarters. But they also serve utilitarian functions: That night, Mr. Assayas, Chloë Grace Moretz (who plays a star in “Sils Maria” who’s tabloid bait) and other members of the cast and crew gathered on the yacht for a low-key dinner. The next morning, the team would face its longest day at Cannes, beginning with an 8:30 a.m. press screening and reaching a climax in the early evening with the official premiere and the ceremonial walk down the red carpet. 

Mr. Assayas, who lives in Paris with his wife, the director Mia Hansen-Love, and their daughter, had arrived by train earlier in the morning. He has been at Cannes many times, most recently in 2010 with “Carlos,” his sprawling epic about Carlos the Jackal. Seated on one of the yacht’s upper decks, the whippet-thin, fast-talking Mr. Assayas — words cascade from him like water — said that “Sils Maria” had grown out of his collaboration with Ms. Binoche on the André Téchiné film “Rendez-vous,” which was in competition at Cannes in 1985. Written by Mr. Assayas and Mr. Téchiné, “Rendez-vous” tells the story of a young actress (Ms. Binoche), who, when the film opens, is an unknown, and, when it ends, is waiting in the wings of a new play, her stardom assured. 

“It all goes way back to my relationship with Juliette,” Mr. Assayas said. “Rendez-vous” made her a star and was his first produced screenplay. “The film was shown here,” he said. “André got the prize for best director, the film was released, like, the same week in France and became a big hit.” He had made some short films and was working at Cahiers, but “all of a sudden, people were quoting me.” Mr. Assayas and Ms. Binoche wanted to work together again but didn’t until “Summer Hours,” his sublime 2008 film in which she co-stars as one of three siblings dealing with the aftermath of their mother’s death. Sometime later, Ms. Binoche called him and said: “O.K., what about that movie we’re supposed to make. Is it happening?” 

Mr. Assayas, then in the middle of writing his last feature, “Something in the Air,” signed on to a reunion. “I had no idea what the film would be,” he said, “but I knew I could do something with Juliette in relationship to our common history.” That history plays out in “Sils Maria” in a number of ways, including through a twisty narrative thread involving Maria’s difficulty in accepting a role, one that Valentine aggressively pushes her to take. Two decades earlier, Maria rose to fame in a Melchior play, “Maloja Snake,” as Sigrid, a young woman who drives an older woman, Helena, to suicide. Now, Maria is being courted for a new production, this time as Helena. 

“The play tells a simple story,” the director for the new production says to Maria, “an older woman falls in love with a scheming girl who has her wrapped around her little finger.” From the way Maria interacts with Valentine, he could be talking about them — or not. The film is filled with such teasing doubling and, in moments, evokes both “All About Eve” and especially “Persona” without ever descending into pastiche. Instead, Mr. Assayas plays with the idea of art imitating life, as well as the reverse, while also exploring questions of time, youth and the slipping away of each. Although Maria is a star, she’s also around 40 (Ms. Binoche is 50), and time and the movie industry are not on her side. She resists taking the role of the older woman even if it’s a part she plays in life. 

A mesmerizing hall of mirrors, “Clouds of Sils Maria” won defenders but no prizes at Cannes. It is destined to be one of those films that, having initially divided reviewers, will be rediscovered by viewers willing to sift through its depths and Mr. Assayas’s ideas on realism, the fast-changing world, fast-moving audiences and the fast-mutating cinema. Once again, the subject turned to blockbusters. “There’s an audience to whom they do say things,” he said, his voice quickening. “In many ways, they are the most coherent representation of the world they live in.” This needs to be respected, and understood. And then Mr. Assayas quoted from Valentine’s defense of the blockbuster: “It’s a convention, but it’s not dumber than any other convention,” which he believes to be “profoundly true.” 

The NY Times: U.S. How El Niño Might Alter the Political Climate

                  The New York Times reports,El Niño is coming. Above-average sea surface temperatures have developed off the west coast of South America and seem poised to grow into a full-fledged El Niño event, in which unusually warm water temperatures spread across the equatorial East Pacific. Models indicate a 75 percent chance of El Niño this fall, which could bring devastating droughts to Australia or heavy rains to the southern United States.

The debate over climate change, however, brings additional significance to this round of El Niño, which will probably increase global temperatures, perhaps to the highest levels ever. It could even inaugurate a new era of more rapid warming, offering vindication to maligned climate models and re-energizing climate activists who have struggled to break through in a polarized political environment.

For a decade, climate scientists have battled a public-relations challenge: Even though atmospheric temperatures are higher than at any time in the past 4,000 years, surface temperature increases seem to have slowed down since 1998. The planet has gotten warmer over the last decade, but climate change skeptics have used this so-called hiatus or pause in warming to take aim at the accuracy of the climate models, which appeared to predict more significant warming than has so far happened.

Most climate scientists argue that the climate models never predicted steady, uninterrupted warming. Annual global temperatures always rise and fall on either side of the longer-term average, in much the same way that the stocks rise and fall from day to day, even during a strong market. They believe, based on computer simulations of hiatus periods and measurements from new floating sensors, they can account for the “missing” heat, much of which they believe is deep in the ocean, more than 700 meters below the water’s surface.

Nonetheless, the hiatus helped climate-change skeptics earn mainstream adherents last year, as global temperatures hung perilously close to falling beneath even the lowest model projections. “Apocalypse perhaps a little later,” as The Economist put it.

There is some evidence that the number of Americans who don’t believe in global warming has increased by about 7 percentage points since the pause or hiatus began to gain mainstream news media attention, according to polling data provided by Edward Maibach, the director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University.

But this year’s El Niño might represent a turning point. The oscillation between El Niño and La Niña, El Niño’s cold-water cousin, is part of the reason for slower atmospheric warming. Sea surface temperatures in the Pacific rise during El Niño and ultimately heat up the atmosphere in what Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, calls a “mini” global warming event. The reverse happens during La Niña.

The shifts between El Niño and La Niña offer an elegant explanation for at least some or perhaps most of the slowdown in atmospheric warming. The hiatus is said to have begun in 1998, just after the historic El Niño of 1997 and early 1998. La Niña has often prevailed since then, cooling the atmosphere.

The return of El Niño is likely to increase global temperatures. Mr. Trenberth believes it is “reasonable” to expect that 2015 will be the warmest year on record if this fall’s El Niño event is strong and long enough.

That could make a difference in the battle for public opinion. One-third of Americans don’t trust climate scientists, according to Jon Krosnick of Stanford University, and they make their decisions about climate change “based on very recent trends in warming.” Belief in warming jumps when global temperatures hit record highs; it drops in cooler years.

As El Niño returns heat from the oceans to the atmosphere, the ensuing spike in global surface temperatures could earn considerable news media attention, especially if record-setting global temperatures coincide with the extreme weather events typically brought by El Niño.

But El Niño has the potential to do more than offer a one-time jolt to climate activists. It could unleash a new wave of warming that could shape the debate for a decade, or longer. In this chain of events, a strong El Niño causes a shift in a longer cycle known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which favors more frequent and intense El Niños during its “warm” or “positive” phase. The oscillation has been “negative” or “cool” since the historic El Niño of 1998.

Climate scientists don’t fully understand the exact mechanics of this phenomenon. “But the suspicion is certainly that it is related to El Niño events,” Mr. Trenberth said. “The switch to the current negative phase was probably triggered by the 97-98 El Niño.” The question is whether this fall’s El Niño “might kick the P.D.O. into a positive phase.” If it does, a result would be faster warming, at least doubling the rate of surface temperature increases.

A sustained period of faster warming won’t convert skeptics into climate change activists. But the accompanying wave of headlines might energize climate change activists and refocus attention on climate change heading into the 2016 presidential election. Those headlines could include landslides in Southern California, or widespread floods across the South.

The timing could provide an uncomfortable backdrop for Republican presidential hopefuls who are skeptical of climate change, like Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who recently said he did not believe human activity was causing climate change. Democrats, eager to cast Republicans as anti-science or to appeal to voters in the endangered coastal city of Miami, might be likelier to re-emphasize climate change if polls show an increase in the public’s belief in global warming, which Mr. Krosnick anticipates will happen if global temperatures rise to record levels.

Even so, Mr. Krosnick doubts whether higher temperatures would compel more ambitious measures to curb carbon emissions: “It won’t vastly increase pressure on the government to do something.”

Mark McKinnon, a Republican strategist, thinks recurring catastrophic events will be necessary to soften the G.O.P.'s position on climate change. Without Republican support, it will be hard for Congress to pass climate legislation.

Xinhua: Japan's "dangerous" interference with drills violates int'l law

Japanese military planes have intruded on the airspace of China-Russia naval exercises and carried out dangerous actions, seriously violating international laws, China's Ministry of National Defense said Sunday.

Two Japanese airplanes, OP3C and YS11EB, intruded into the East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone on Saturday morning to scout and interfere with the China-Russia naval drills.

Chinese warplanes took off instantly to take necessary identification and preventive measures to ensure the safety of the warships and aircraft in the drills, said the ministry.

Japan's actions could have easily caused a misunderstanding and even led to a mid-air incident, a ministry statement said, in response to Japanese media reports that Chinese military airplanes had been "unusually close" to the jets of Japan's Self-Defense Forces.

The exercises in the designated waters and airspace was a routine drill held by China and Russia. "No fly" and "no sail" notices in relevant waters and airspace had been issued ahead of the exercises according to international practice, the ministry said.

Chinese warplanes have the right to safeguard China's air safety and take necessary identification and preventive measures in case foreign jets enter the identification zone, it said.

China has demanded Japan to respect the legitimate rights of Chinese and Russian navies, restrain the personnel concerned and stop all reconnaissance and interference activities. "Otherwise, Japan shall be responsible for all the consequences," the statement said.

Source: Xinhua

Cannes 2014: Godard's "Adieu au langage" posits cinema's next magical step

Adieu au langage

Written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard

France, 2014

Godard has always been one for thinking of cinema in terms of the image itself, narrative itself, its history, its politics, his own place within it, and how any of those things can be denied, altered, and exaggerated. During the 1960s, his role as a film critic at Cahiers du Cinéma took shape via deconstructing his love for Hollywood, bringing out Breathless, still his most straightforward work to date. The 1970s saw Godard taking a stand for his revolutionary leftist politics in the Dziga Vertov group, his disposal of narrative being a message against bourgeois structure. From the 1980s and onward, a large period termed “late Godard”, Godard has taken his previous elements and fused them with the history of cinema, literary references, pauses on nature, and general incomprehensibility. They’re often confusing, experimental, and quick to divide critical communities and Godard appreciators of all stripes.

With 2001’s In Praise of Love, Godard was seen yet again as an inventor, a late Méliès or Lumière or Muybridge, as his film stock shortened and the new avenue of digital had to be used. He heightened the saturation to an ugly level, implemented slow-motion, and formed a type of aesthetic that’s fearfully odd but uniquely his own. This year, Adieu au langage again makes the climb toward this kind of inventiveness and controversy within the history of cinema.

A man points to the subtitle of a Solzhenitsyn novel and asks it to be read aloud. “An experiment in literary investigation,” he notes, containing a hint of self-reference as his words bubble up again and again. Adieu au langage is an experiment in cinematic investigation, with all the pretensions that phrase could exhibit. The scene with the book is cut to cell phones as intellectuals now contemplate music and words through their pocket-devices. It’s a freeing from Godard’s own obsession with the archaic and his own place in cinema throughout the nouvelle vague days, and a full admittance to working with the cinema of the present. “The present is dead,” laments another character, not as conversation but as if a direct statement to the audience. The film itself acts like it knows how we’re trying to read it, playing one step ahead and admitting its own place as Godard from the future.

Its ambitions come to an audio-visual presence through Godard’s formal process of 3D framing and visual trickery. A pervasive problem within the high-production ambitions of major studios crafting in 3D comes both through an ignorance of working with a new medium and a love for taking away our precious images through quick cuts. An admiration of the image itself can’t be attained if we feel as if a normal movie is shabbily dressing itself in the clothes of another medium — the quick cuts even seem an admittance to this, trying its hardest to mask its embarrassment. Adieu is also a goodbye to this way of thinking, framing, and blocking such that the depth can be felt in each image, and that a switch from 2D and 3D can be viscerally apparent. A shot of a forest outside a window, the sun briefly making an appearance indoors clamors for an addition to the sort of image present in the deep-focus shots ofCitizen Kane. Shots of the omnipresent dog Roxy, the visual metaphor for nature mirroring the lead couple’s nudity, again drown Godard’s world in some of the highest saturation possible until the universe is melted into light, then darkness, then digital.

It’s a ciné-poem, full of characters who hate being called characters and a narrative that is only barely strung along through a series of sensory-overload images and ear-bleeding screeches only to be followed by beautiful depth and faint whispers. The credits thank the actors, Roxy, authors, philosophers, and, curiously, the different cameras used. This provokes a gentle laugh as it confirms the audience’s suspicion that the cameras are a part of the play, each with its own personality and ultimate role. In two separate instances, the cameras split, the 3D maintained, covering images of tranquility and disaster, man and woman. The total image is a distortion based purely upon how our eyes behave, but the separate images can be gauged through closing one eye or the other. No longer is the cine-image confined to the frame, its power has been placed in its people — Godard’s politics are still intact.

The narrative and dialogue are dense as Godard has filled it with philosophy and cinema references as always. Adieu au langage is a film that can’t be gauged through traditional means — thinking about it requires the language of experimental cinema. In that sense, it may takes years to fully digest and saturate itself into the new cinema. Yet it may be that the applause emitted from the Cannes crowd, during Godard’s most surprising and ambitious use of 3D, is this generation’s ducking from the train in the Lumières’ cinema tent.

By:  Zach Lewis  SoundOnSight

TheGuardian: Petro Poroshenko wins Ukraine presidency, according to exit polls

The pro-European businessman Petro Poroshenko has won a landmark presidential election in Ukraine with 56% of the vote, according to exit polls, clearing the 50% threshold to win outright without a second round. Former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko was trailing far behind, with about 13%.

Ukrainians flocked to the polling stations on Sunday in what was seen as the most important election since independence. Millions of citizens in the restive east, however, did not vote at all, either because of separatist sympathies, feelings of intimidation by pro-Russian militias or simply a lack of polling stations.

"Today we can definitely say all of Ukraine has voted, this is a national vote," said Poroshenko from his campaign headquarters shortly after the exit polls were released. "The first steps that we will take at beginning of presidential office should be focused on stopping the war, to put an end to this chaos and bring peace to a united Ukraine." Poroshenko promised to hold parliamentary elections before the end of the year. "When there is a parliamentarian crisis, the only solution in a democracy is early elections," he said.

He also committed himself to start a dialogue with Russia and launch negotiations for a new treaty to replace the Budapest memorandum – the 1994 document in which Russia, the US and the UK promised to protect Ukrainian territorial integrity in exchange for the country giving up its nuclear arms. His first trip as president, he said, would be to the Donbass region.

Earlier in the day, voters said they felt the election was an important step toward solving the country's political crisis, and several said they wantedPoroshenko to exceed the 50% threshold to avoid a runoff vote in three weeks.

"Since Russia doesn't recognise our government, it's very important that the people say that now there is one person they support. Then the whole world will understand that their position is absurd," said Vladimir Pestenkov, an executive at an IT company.

Lyashko came third, with 8% of the vote, according to exit polls. Turnout was reported to be high in most of the country.

"The turnout is a lot higher this time, which is good, although the election workers are barely able to keep up," said Olesya Maximenko, a vote observer with the civil society non-governmental organisation OPORA in Kiev, said turnout was high. "These elections cost us lives and blood so, knowing the price, the least people could do is come out and vote."

In the east, polling day revealed how much work the government in Kiev has in store to bring the region back under control. It was always expected that in separatist strongholds such as Slavyansk there would be no voting but, more surprisingly, in Donetsk, a city of close to 1m people, not a single polling station opened. Even in the morning, sources inside the pro-Kiev administration said they hoped to have a number of polling stations open by the afternoon, but that did not happen.

In Dokuchayevsk, several of the 13 polling stations had planned to open but in the end none did. At School Number Three, there were plans for a late opening at 10am after the local committee finally received ballot papers overnight but, just before voting opened, a separatist representative arrived and demanded that the station was closed.

"He asked politely, but made it clear that if we did not accede, he would come back," said one of the election officials. The separatist made off with the ballot papers, and the town's only remaining polling station closed.

The closest town to normality in the region was Mariupol, scene of violence on 9 May when pro-Ukrainian forces entered the town and clashes broke out in which unarmed people were shot. Here, most polling stations opened.

After oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine's richest man and an important political broker, came out in the past fortnight against the separatist movement, he also ordered his factories to provide unarmed worker patrols to ensure order in the city. The separatist barricades have been removed, and workers were standing guard at polling stations. Voting proceeded smoothly but the atmosphere was tense.

"The ballots were delivered in the dead of night, and we weren't told they were coming until the last minute," said Sergei Pashkovsky, the head of the electoral committee at polling station 239, opposite the charred shell of the regional administration, set on fire during clashes this month. "It will be the same thing tonight. We don't yet know who will pick up the ballots, and where they will be taken, but we've been told it will be done under tight security. They will tell us the details at the last minute."

Across town at School Number Seven, there are usually two polling stations, but only one had opened. As a result, half of the people who came to vote were turned away as they were 'not on the list'. Roman Moroz, head of the electoral commission, said that 9 of its 12 members had pulled out over the past week, forcing him to drag his friends along to make up the numbers and ensure the polling station could open. The original members had been intimidated or received threats, he said.

In the capital Kiev, queues at polling stations stretched for an hour or more; at the few that had opened in Mariupol, the turnout at two different polling stations by 3pm was under 20%.

There is genuine anger in the east, where, in the past few weeks, many people have become more convinced by separatist ideas. There were, however, many people who wanted to vote but could not.

However, with a proliferation of armed groups, increasing paramilitary activity, and a population that remains deeply sceptical of Kiev – even as many people tire of the separatists – regaining control will not be an easy task for the country's new president.

Poroshenko will also have to deal with an economic crisis, with the national currency, the hryvnia, continuing to fall and public debt at a huge level. The country received a bailout from the International Monetary Fund this year tied to painful social cuts and reforms. Poroshenko will also need to steer a delicate geopolitical path, moving the country towards closer ties with Europe demanded by the Euromaidan protests that swept out the government of Viktor Yanukovych in February, while improving relations with Russia, Ukraine's often belligerent neighbour.

Poroshenko has pledged to sign as soon as possible the economic part of an association agreement with the European Union, the political half of which was signed in March. The agreement will establish a free trade area and take steps toward visa-free travel, while committing Ukraine to economic and judicial reforms. He will also have to prove he can usher in a new type of politics, free of the corruption and mismanagement that dogged the Yanukovych regime.

He has said he will not seek to join Nato, a controversial idea that has split the population and worried Russian leaders. In a major sign that the Kremlin was softening its stance on Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that Russia would work with the Kiev government after the presidential vote. Previously, Russia has refused to recognise the regime, arguing it came to power through an armed coup.

Greece: Has our political system reached rock bottom? By Nykos Konstandaras

 "If they can understand that they were elected to represent and to serve a nation that is suffering, then we will be able to say that something is changing for the better".

By Nikos Konstandaras We still don’t know if our economy has reached the long-desired “rock bottom,” the point at which the only way is up. The results of the voting for the European Parliament and for local government suggest that there may be an equivalent point in politics – a base which expresses voters’ needs and anxieties. When the final results confirm initial estimates, it will be useful for our political parties to take stock of their responsibility toward their voters and shape their policies accordingly. On Sunday it appeared that in the Euro election, the leftwing opposition party SYRIZA won about 26.7 percent, followed by New Democracy with 22.8 percent, Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn with 9.3 percent, the Elia alliance (PASOK) with 8.1 percent and To Potami with 6.7 percent. We can see that SYRIZA won the most votes but failed to improve on its result in the national elections of June 2012 (26.89 percent). Center right New Democracy, the senior partner in the coalition government, managed to hold on to a large number of its voters from 2012 (when it won 29.66 percent), even though it made a large number of tactical errors and is carrying out a harsh austerity program that includes punitive taxation. Elia gained less than the 12.28 percent that PASOK won in 2012, but it was a lot more than opinion polls were giving the coalition’s junior partner. The Euro elections are fertile ground for a protest vote and SYRIZA had made clear that this was a referendum that would lead to the government’s being forced to call early elections. Late last night, SYRIZA’s candidate was involved in a tight race to head the Attica Region, whereas Athens Mayor Giorgos Kaminis managed to hold off a strong challenge by a leftist hopeful. If SYRIZA had managed to win the country’s largest region and its capital, it would have had a much stronger result. Now, without increasing its nationwide percentage, it cannot claim that the result overturns the political order. On the contrary, the reelection of Kaminis in Athens and Yiannis Boutaris in Thessaloniki showed that voters appreciate the effort of people who did not have the support of large parties but whose acts spoke louder than words. It is also a good sign that To Potami gained a substantial percentage in its first election, confirming the need for something new in our politics. This, too, is a sign that change is coming out of our politics’ impasse. However, Golden Dawn’s strong showing – which, despite the charges of criminal activity against leading cadres increased its percentage from the 6.92 percent it won in 2012 – indicates that come what may a large number of voters choose to express themselves through the respresentatives of rage and bigotry. The whole political system and society must deal with this problem, lest it turns out that the well into which we have fallen really has no bottom. The elections did not overturn anything. They did result in 21 Greek members of the European Parliament, 13 regional governors and 325 mayors, along with thousands of councillors. If they can understand that they were elected to represent and to serve a nation that is suffering, then we will be able to say that something is changing for the better.

Greece, European Parliament Vote. SYRIZA scores first election win but coalition stands firm after EU vote

SYRIZA gained the first electoral victory in its history on Sunday as it came first in the European Parliament vote but failed to establish a big enough gap over the coalition, for which PASOK performed better than expected, to suggest that the government’s stability is in question.

The opposition party was projected to receive 26.7 percent of the vote, which is almost identical to the percentage it received in the 2012 general elections. New Democracy was expected to get 22.8 percent and the Elia (Olive Tree) alliance, led by PASOK, 8.1 percent. Although this would only secure the center-left grouping fourth place, it had been expected to perform slightly worse in terms of its percentage.

A stronger performance by Elia meant that the coalition’s combined support was comfortably above SYRIZA, whose officials had suggested during the campaign that a large margin of victory over New Democracy or a low aggregate vote for the two governing parties would give the leftists license to call for snap elections.

Government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou said the result left no room for SYRIZA to claim that it could “overthrow” the government.

“There is no issue of early elections,” he said.

The SYRIZA camp, however, took heart from what was a historic win for the party and insisted that the result of the European elections confirmed that the leftists are on course to lead the next government. “The map of [Greece’s] political forces, as we knew it over the past decades, has changed,” said SYRIZA spokesman Panos Skourletis, who questioned whether New Democracy and PASOK had a mandate to handle issues of national importance.

“This government cannot handle the negotiations regarding debt relief, an issue that will affect Greece for the next decades,” he added. “It now lacks the political legitimacy to do so.”

In terms of seats in the European Parliament, SYRIZA was on course to elect six MEPs, New Democracy five and Elia two.

Beyond the contest between the coalition parties and SYRIZA, and what this might mean for national politics, the European elections also underlined that Golden Dawn’s influence has become firmly established. The neo-Nazi party was on course to gain just over 9 percent of the vote, which was some 2 percentage points higher than its result in the June 2012 national elections. Despite its leader, Nikos Michaloliakos, and several of the party’s MPs being in pretrial custody on charges of forming a criminal organization, Golden Dawn was set to elect three MEPs to the European Parliament.

To Potami (The River), the centrist party formed by journalist Stavros Theodorakis just a few months ago, came in fifth place. It was expected to get around 6.7 percent of the vote, which was slightly lower than many opinion polls had suggested but still an impressive total for a new party with no politicians in its ranks. To Potami is due to send two parliamentarians to Brussels and Strasbourg.

The Communist Party (KKE) was expected to elect the same number of MEPs despite gaining less support. KKE was forecast to receive 6 percent of the final vote. The final MEP spot was due to go to the right-wing anti-bailout party Independent Greeks. It was expected to gain 3.4 percent in Sunday’s elections. There was disappointment for Democratic Left (DIMAR), the only parliamentary party not to elect an MEP. DIMAR was expected to gain less than 1.5 percent.

Putin: Russia to respect Ukraine's election results

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday that Russia will respect the results of Ukraine's presidential election on Sunday.

Russia will work with Ukraine's new authorities after the election, Putin told reporters at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

Putin said that he is ready to hold talks with Ukraine's incoming government and that a new Cold War with the West over Ukraine is unlikely.

Putin also said that he is concerned about threats by "radicals" in Ukraine to interrupt Russian natural gas supplies to Europe.

Putin noted that sanctions imposed on Russia over the Ukraine issue are counterproductive and do not accord with international law.

Isolating a country like Russia is not possible, said the Russian president, adding that sanctions will lead the Russian, European, global economy to turbulence that is in no one's interests.

He reiterated that a new Cold War over Ukraine crisis is unlikely.

He said Russia is ready for a constructive dialogue with Ukraine over the price of Russian gas, but asserted that the dialogue should not be carried out though baseless demands and ultimatums.

Ukraine's presidential election is set to take place on Sunday despite waves of violence and political instability in the country's eastern regions, where government forces have launched operations against insurgents to regain control.

A total of 21 candidates would compete for the country's top post, with former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and businessman Petro Poroshenko emerging as front-runners.

The election was called after former President Viktor Yanukovych was forced out of office in February and fled to Russia soon afterwards.

Source: Xinhua

Turkish movie Winter Sleep wins Palme d'Or at Cannes

Turkish movie Winter Sleep, directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, won the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) for the best film at the 67th Cannes Film Festival on Saturday.

The winners of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival were announced on Saturday evening at the closing ceremony.

With two Grand Prix and a Best Director Award, Ceylan returned to Cannes this year with his seventh full-length feature film, which lasts three hours and 16 minutes.

The story takes place at a hotel. Aydin, a former actor, runs the small hotel in central Anatolia with his wife Nihal, with whom he has a stormy relationship. His sister Necla is suffering from her recent divorce.

In winter as the snow begins to fall in the Anatolian plains, the hotel turns into an inescapable place that fuels their animosities.

Explaining the length of the film, Ceylan told a press conference following the awarding ceremony that "When I write a script I never consider the commercial side and I just write like the novel writer. So when we finished the script we realized that it was two times longer than the one of my previous movie Once Upon A time In Anatolia."

"At first it was 4 and half hours but in the editing I worked hard to make it at this length. This time, I and my wife wrote the script together and the characters and the story brought us to such long story," said the director.

"In general I can find enough motivation only if I make movies about the human nature," said the director.

The movie The Wonders by Italian woman director Alice Rohrwacher won the Grand Prize of the Festival.

Rohrwacher told the press conference: "For me all this is enormous, I wanted then to thank all my collaborator because during the turning they were attacked by the bees, but I said to them that a pinhole by bees means no rheumatisms when you are going to be old."

"It was very touching to receive the prize from the hands of Sofia Loren and having the image of Marcello Mastroianni right there," said the director.

U.S. filmmaker Bennett Miller won the Award for Best Director for the movie Foxcatcher.

The Jury Prize was shared by the movies Mommy, directed by Xavier Dolan, and Goodbye to Language by Jean-Luc Godard.

Dolan told reporters that "I recognize the deliberate decision of the jury to associate me and Godard because of our ages but also because of our research of freedom in cinema in different ways and times."

The Award for Best Screenplay went to Andrey Zvyagintsev and Oleg Negin for the Russian movie Leviathan.

Julianne Moore won the Award for Best Actress for the movie Maps to the Stars, while Timothy Spall won the Award for Best Actor in the movie Mr. Turner.

Spall said "It's so amazing and I'm deeply touched. I'm so proud by this award then I spent most of my career as supporting actor."

The prize of Camera d'Or, for the best first feature film, was awarded to the movie Party Girl, directed by the debuting French trio: Marie Amachoukeli, Claire Burger and Samuel Theis.

The Palme d'Or for Short Film was awarded to the movie Leidi by Simon Mesa Soto.

Source: Xinhua