Director Quentin Tarantino has dismissed accusations he convinced his fellow jury members to award his ex-girlfriend Sofia Coppola the top honour at the Venice Film Festival this weekend (11-12Sep10).
The 39 year old scooped the Golden Lion on Saturday (11Sep10) for her movie Somewhere, which tells story of a bad-boy actor whose life is changed after his young daughter comes to stay.
Tarantino chaired the Italian festival's jury - but local journalists claim he favoured Coppola, who he dated in the early 2000s, and one of his mentors, Monte Hellman, who was handed a lifetime achievement prize.
However, the moviemaker has hit back at his critics, insisting the winners' work was all he focused on - not his personal relationships with the nominees.
He says, "I wasn't going to let anything like that affect me at all. I was just going to literally respond to the film. There was no me steering any direction. Being her friend didn't affect me or make me sway the jury in any way.
"The other members of the jury don't know her at all. They just loved the film. We kept coming back to it, as one of us said, because 'It's a great f**king movie', all right?"
Quentin Tarantino is a filmmaker who simply can't be ignored, especially when he lobs a...
John Ruth earnt his nickname The Hangman for a good reason, he's one of the...
John Ruth, known by his associates and like-minded peers as The Hangman on account of...
With preparation well underway for his latest Broadway show, director Arnold Albertson (Owen Wilson) heads...
Tarantino takes an unusually comical approach to a provocative topic, and the result is as...
German bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz is on the hunt for a brutal gang of...
German bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz is on the hunt for a brutal gang of...
American director Roger Corman is one of the film industry's most influential directors. Born in...
There's a zing of postmodern fun to be had while watching a film that documents...
Longtime buddies Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez have worked together before (Four Rooms, Sin City),...
Z Channel was one of the first pay cable stations ever. It's "magnificent obsession" was...
In the wake of "Reservoir Dogs," "Pulp Fiction" and "Jackie Brown," film buffs have come...