Malick's 'Tree of Life' wins top Cannes fest honor

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, who has skipped all public events at the glamorous Cannes festival.

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

"Why isn't he here? I'm not saying it's an easy question to answer, but he personally is a very humble guy and a very shy guy," Pohlad said after the awards ceremony. "He just very sincerely wants the work to speak for itself."

Gardner said when it came to the prospect of Cannes prizes, Malick had been "very sweet. He said, `If we were that lucky, I'd like to thank my wife Becky and my parents.'"

"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.

Read more from Yahoo! News...