Seed NewsvineDel Toro Wins Best Actor For 'Che'
Oscar winning Director Steven Soderbergh ("Bubble," "Traffic") was at the center of attention of this year's Cannes Film Festival. His audacious epic "Che"--rummored to be split into movies, "The Argentine" and "Guerrilla," come this fall--caused an uproar with many critics during its premiere. Aside from being well over four hours in running time, the digitally shot epic avoids some key issues in the life of Ernesto "Che" Guevara. A.O. Scott of the New York Times wrote from Cannes, "There is a lot, however, that the audience will not learn from this big movie[...]Guevara was an important player in the Castro government, but his brutal role in turning a revolutionary movement into a dictatorship goes virtually unmentioned."
Still, even with an exhaustive running time and the fact that it is all mostly in Spanish (subtitled in English), Del Toro's much-buzzed about performance didn't fail to impress the jury; he walked off with the Best Actor prize on the closing night.
Del Toro won his first Oscar under the direction of Soderbergh for 2000's "Traffic." If any distributor or buyer has the guts to cave into Soderbergh's $8-$10 million dollar asking price for "Che" they might have to start making Oscar night plans now.
