There have been many truly brilliant films that took home the Palme d'Or at the annual Cannes Film Festival. In the last 20 years the event has awarded great titles like Pulp Fiction, The Piano, Elephant and last year's The of Life. This year's winner was Amour, the new film from Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke, and now its been announced when the movie will start rolling out in US theaters.
Sony Pictures Classics, which has picked up the movie for distribution in the United States, has announced that it will be releasing Amour in Los Angeles and New York theaters on December 19th. The press release doesn't mention when it will be expanding to other areas, but the film does join a very crowded late December feel.In the last two weeks of the year we will see the release of Django Unchained, The Great Gatsby, This is 40, Zero Dark Thirty and The Guilt Trip (not to mention that both The Hobbit and Les Miserables are opening on December 14th).
The film stars Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva as Georges and Riva, a couple of 80-year-old retired music teachers. One day they learn that their daughter, who lives abroad, has had a stroke and is partially paralyzed, and the couple must deal with the emotional pain that comes with the ordeal. This is the second time that a Haneke film has won the Palme d'Or, as his 2009 title, The White Ribbon, also took home the prize.
