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From The New York Times:

Fahrenheit 9/11 Wins Palme D’Or Award at Cannes
By REUTERS
Published: May 22, 2004
Filed at 2:43 p.m. ET

CANNES, France (Reuters) - U.S. director Michael Moore’s controversial anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 won the Palme d’Or best film award at the Cannes film festival on Saturday in an evening otherwise dominated by Asian films.

“What have you done? I’m completely overwhelmed by this,'’ an emotional Moore said in his acceptance speech.

“The last time I was on an award stage in Hollywood, all hell broke loose,'’ he added with a laugh.

Moore won a special award in Cannes two years ago for his anti-gun documentary Bowling for Columbine, which went on to win an Oscar. Moore drew criticism for his extended acceptance speech in which he spoke out against President Bush.

Fahrenheit 9/11 attracted acres of publicity before the festival when Disney, the parent company of Miramax which produced the film, said it did not want to distribute the picture in an election year.

Japanese actor Yagura Yuuyi won the best actor award for his performance in Nobody Knows, about four children abandoned by their mother to fend for themselves. The 14-year-old actor was not on hand to accept the award.

The best actress award went to China’s Maggie Cheung for her role as a widow trying to kick a drug habit in Clean, by French director Olivier Assayas, who is her ex-husband.

The Grand Prix went to ultra-violent Korean film Old Boy, a revenge movie of the kind that jury president Quentin Tarantino particularly enjoys.

From the Chicago Sun-Times…

Ovation for Moore’s ‘Fahrenheit’ lasts longer than Bush dawdled
May 19, 2004
BY ROGER EBERT FILM CRITIC

CANNES, France — Two questions involving the duration of events: (1) So how long, exactly, was the standing ovation for Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11? And (2) Did President Bush actually remain in a Florida classroom, reading from My Pet Goat, for seven minutes after he was informed of the second attack on the World Trade Center?

Moore’s anti-Bush documentary was received rapturously at its black-tie screening here Monday, and a friend told me the ovation lasted 25 minutes. In my report I suggested that Cannes ovations, like the estimates of parade crowds in Chicago, have a tendency to be exaggerated. Since I attended an 8 a.m. press screening, I was not inside the Palais des Festivals to clock it myself.

Now I have another source. The ovation lasted 20 minutes, according to Variety, which may be correct, because its reporters all carry stopwatches to check the running times of movies.

In any event it was “the longest ovation in the history of the festival,” according to Thierry Fremaux, the festival’s director. At a party Monday evening, I asked Moore. “It depends on when you start counting,” he said. “Do you start with the beginning of the closing credits or when the lights go up? When they just wouldn’t stop clapping, I walked out and they kept applauding in the lobby.”

And as for Bush’s delay in reacting to the attack on the World Trade Center? Conventional wisdom has it that the president was reading to schoolchildren when he got the news and quickly left the room.

The Moore version: He was informed of the first attack, went into the room anyway, was informed of the second attack, and remained with the students until a staff member suggested that he leave.

“The teacher in that Sarasota classroom happened to tape the whole event,” Moore told me. “We’d seen other footage from the networks, but it was all edited. She just left the camera running. She said nobody had ever asked her for the film. Bush didn’t instinctively jump up and go into action, but just stayed on autopilot until someone told him what to do.”