Belgian film wins top honor at Cannes Film Festival

Cannes, France – The Belgian film “The Child,” about a young petty crook suddenly faced with the responsibilities of fatherhood, won top honors Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival.

It was the second time a movie by sibling filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne won the prestigious Palme d’Or. Their teen drama “Rosetta” took the main Cannes prize six years ago.

The Dardenne brothers dedicated their award to the French journalist Florence Aubenas and her guide Hussein Hanoun, missing since their Jan. 5 kidnapping in Baghdad.

“Very humbly, with no pretentiousness whatsoever, maybe since the Cannes Film Festival is broadcast all over the world, it will be a little spark of news which will get through to them and maybe help them to go on hoping,” said Jean-Pierre Dardenne. “And it will show their kidnappers, too, that we’re just as obstinate as they are.”

Like earlier films from the Dardennes, “The Child” deals with social issues involving Belgium’s struggling poor.

The award was presented by Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman, who won Academy Awards in February for Clint Eastwood’s boxing saga “Million Dollar Baby.”

Receiving the second-place grand prize was U.S. director Jim Jarmusch’s “Broken Flowers,” a droll drama starring Bill Murray as an aging Don Juan in pursuit of the son he never knew he had.

Tommy Lee Jones was honored as best actor for “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada,” his feature-film directing debut in which he plays a Texas ranch hand who forces his best friend’s killer (Barry Pepper) to dig up the body and haul it for reburial in Mexico. The film also won the screenplay award for Mexican writer Guillermo Arriaga.

Hanna Laslo earned the best-actress prize for her role as a gabby cabdriver in Israeli director Amos Gitai’s “Free Zone,” a road-trip tale through the Middle East.

Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke received the directing award for “Hidden,” his cryptic thriller about a couple menaced by a video stalker.

The third-place jury prize was given to Chinese director Wang Xiaoshuai’s “Shanghai Dreams,” a love story set among workers who dutifully obeyed the government’s call to relocate to factories in a remote new territory in the 1960s.

Prosecutors want Limbaugh’s medical files released

West Palm Beach, Fla. – Palm Beach County prosecutors who want to examine Rush Limbaugh’s medical records for their prescription drug abuse investigation are going to court Monday in hopes of having that evidence released.

The records were seized in late 2003, as prosecutors looked into allegations that the conservative commentator went “doctor shopping” to illegally acquire pain medication. Limbaugh, 54, of Palm Beach, has not been charged with any crime and has denied any criminal wrongdoing.

Limbaugh’s attorneys fought the seizures, claiming a violation of privacy rights. But last month the Florida Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal, clearing the way for prosecutors to finally look over the records.

The records are under seal in the possession of Palm Beach Circuit Judge Jeffrey Winikoff. A hearing on the issue is scheduled for Monday.

Rapper arrested on murder charges days before debut

Decatur, Ga. – Just days before the expected release of Gucci Mane’s debut album, the rapper is in jail, facing a murder charge.

Mane, whose real name is Radric Davis, is accused of the May 10 shooting death of a man whose body was found in woods near a middle school, DeKalb police spokesman Herschel Grangent said.

Grangent would not say what linked Mane to Henry Clark’s death. The rapper waived his appearance at a hearing Friday and remains in DeKalb County Jail until a bond hearing.

The 25-year-old’s album, “Trap House” is expected to be released Tuesday. A publicist for Atlanta-based Big Cat Records did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment on the incident.

Redford to launch theater chain for independent films

Salt Lake City – Robert Redford’s Sundance Group will launch Sundance Cinemas, a movie theater chain for independent, documentary and foreign-language films as well as some studio projects.

“Anything which helps new and interesting voices in the cultural realm reach more people can only enrich the experience of artists, audiences and communities,” Redford said.

Other programming will include shorts, filmmaker interviews and public forums.

Reid to host ‘Wild On!’

New York – “Wild On!” is back, and Tara Reid has signed on as host.

The travel series will debut its new season in August, E! Entertainment Television said Friday.

Reid, star of “Van Wilder,” “Josie and the Pussycats” and the “American Pie” movies, will take viewers along “as she skips to the front of the line and straight past the bouncer at the wildest parties in the world,” E! said in a statement.

“You might think you know her from the myriad magazines highlighting her Hollywood high life, but you are about to experience the real Tara,” the statement said. “We’re no longer the fly on the wall, this time we are on the dance floor, at the bar and even in the penthouses, as we follow the only girl who truly knows how to paint the town (or in this case, the world!) red.”