CANNES, France: The Cannes film festival wraps Sunday with no clear favorite to win the Palme d'Or, after weathering a furor over Danish contender Lars von Trier's off-color remarks about Hitler. The provocative auteur's apocalyptic psychodrama “Melancholia” remained a strong contender for the top honor, despite getting himself ousted by organizers for saying that he understood the Nazi dictator “a little bit”. Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne were hoping for a record third Palme d'Or for “The Kid With a Bike,” an uplifting portrait of an abandoned 11-year-old boy and the woman bent on saving him. But they faced strong competition from enigmatic US director Terrance Malick's much-anticipated Texas coming-of-age tale “The Tree of Life” starring, for the first time together, Brad Pitt and Sean Penn. – Agence France
