Cannes’ Top Dog Announced

25 May 08

SuperWoof to the Palm Dog – the Cannes Film Festival’s award for the best performance by a dog in a Cannes film!

This year the award was won by Lucy, the eponymous lead in Kelly Riechardt’s Wendy and Lucy. Lucy – part hunting dog, part retriever – appears alongside Michelle Williams (the late Heath Ledger’s estranged wife) in the film. In the film Lucy’s companion gets arrested for stealing dog food while on a road trip to Alaska. Gggrwoooof!

Picking up the award on behalf of the canine Kelly Riechardt revealed, “Lucy is actually my dog,” adding that “She was no trouble at all to direct. She always did what she was told and got to the set on time.”

Lucy was at home in Queens, NY, and Kelly says that the diamante dog collar with the words Palm Dog stitched into it which is given to the winner will be kept for dinner parties: “I don’t think Lucy will be walking around with this on, as she’ll get her ass kicked by all the other dogs in the ‘hood.”

The runner-up Special Jury Prize went to Molly, the dog appearing in, and on the poster of, Norwegian comedy O’Horten, directed by Bent Hamer, who previously made art-house favourite Kitchen Stories. Bent Hamer was on hand to pick up the award on behalf of Molly.

Of the winning Palm Dog film, one of the journalist film critics who helped pick the winner noted that “The film’s got everything — dog food, the dog pound and the dogged determination of a down and out.”

The 2008 festival was a particularly good one for four-legged performances according to Palm Dog judges, noting that “it kicked off with a standout performance in ‘Blindness,’ where a dog licks Julianne Moore’s face.”

There is also a dog called Jesus Christ in “The Wackness” starring Ben Kingsley, while another movie screened at Cannes features a mutt named Gandhi.

Palm Dog founder Rose, whose own dog Mutley died this year, told AFP he was confident the Palm Dog would one day rival and perhaps even surpass the Palme d’Or in prestige. He is also doing his bit for dogs in Britain, where he runs the Fidos awards at London Film Festival.

Last year the Cannes canine prize was shared by a cartoon mutt from the film “Persepolis” and two real Thai canines. In 2006 it went to Mops, a doll-sized dog that featured in Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette.” One year it went to a hound that was no more than a chalk outline in “Dogville” by Denmark’s Lars von Trier.

Good thing this year the winner was a real flesh and blood dog! So scratch out a space in your busy doggish diaires to see the winner film….

Awoof! Archibald