Oscar winner Javier Bardem won the top acting prize at The 63rd Annual Cannes Film Festival. The jury gave the Best Actor Award  to Bardem (in a tie with Elio Germano), for his performance as a cancer-stricken father in Iñárritu’s “Biutiful.”
“Thanks to the jury for this beautiful award,” said Bardem from the podium. “This award is a recognition to my work which would not exist if it weren’t for the extraordinary movie Alejandro Iñárritu has made.”

He then brought Penelope Cruz to tears when he made his first public acknowledgement of their relationship.

He told the crowd in Spanish, “I share this joy with my friend, my companion, my love: Penelope: I owe you a lot and I love you so much.” Bardem then blew a kiss to Cruz, who was visibly moved by the speech – and was seen wiping a tear from her eye. The pair has been dating since 2007, but have repeatedly refused to talk about their relationship – continually dismissing reports they are engaged.  

Bardem plays the central role in “Biutiful,” a Spanish-language drama set in the back streets of Barcelona, where immigrant workers live in squalor and struggle to survive in a world where they are treated like animals. The film is Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s moving portrayal of a father rushing to put his chaotic life in order before it is too late.

Bardem’s character Uxbal is part criminal hustler, part clairvoyant who has visions of people beyond their grave, but he is above all a father whose two children are torn between him and their negligent, clinically depressed mother.

Warm applause and plenty of tears greeted the Cannes press screening. Asked how he found the experience of playing a man troubled by ghosts, ill health and the mess of his personal and professional life, Bardem replied: “The movie is intense. So the process has been very intense, but it’s been also very rewarding in the sense of going to places where an actor has to grow up as a professional.” He added: “This is … intense, but there is hope in every gesture that he does toward the human beings that surround him, the kids, the immigrants the wife.”

It is Inarritu’s first film since “Babel” four years ago, and the simple narrative in a single city is a striking contrast to the globe-spanning, multiple threads of that story. “I was so exhausted after globe-trotting around the world that I promised to myself that I would be doing a simple film,” Inarritu told reporters at a press conference.

“I said I want one guy, one point of view in one neighborhood and no more Japanese-Moroccan-English. I want my own language … It was not easier. I think it’s as difficult as any film I have done.”

The filmmaker, nominated for an Oscar for Babel, said death was a subject he explored in all of his movies. “As anybody else I am terrified by it. The more you grow, you question yourself and you realize how close you are. I have the clock ticking and that probably triggered in me some fears and questions and some things that I can answer making films.” He added, however, that despite the darkness of “Biutiful,” it was “the most hopeful of my films by far.”