U.S. director wins top Cannes honor

CANNES, France – American director Terrence Malick’s expansive drama “The Tree of Life” won the top honor at the Cannes Film Festival on Sunday, while Kirsten Dunst took the best-actress prize for the apocalyptic saga “Melancholia.”

The Palme d’Or prize was accepted Sunday by two “Tree of Life” producers, Dede Gardner and Bill Pohlad, for the notoriously press-shy Malick.

“I know he would be thrilled with this,” Pohlad said.

“The Tree of Life,” which opens Friday in the United States, stars Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain in a far-flung story of family life that plays out against a cosmic backdrop, including glorious visuals of the creation of the universe and the era of dinosaurs.

Dunst won for her role in the end-of-the-world tale “Melancholia,” whose director, Denmark’s Lars von Trier, was banned from the festival after sympathetic remarks for Adolf Hitler at a movie press conference.