Brendan Gleeson

Brendan Gleeson's masterly Emmy Award-winning portrayal of Winston Churchill at his best and worst in Thaddeus O'Sullivan's HBO docudrama The Bulldog: Into The Storm finally reached Ireland courtesy of BBC2 last Monday. Being the committed and versatile actor that he is, Gleeson was off in the west of Ireland playing an 'ah-sure-it's-alright' smalltown garda sergeant – not unlike his sheriff in Lake Placid – who's forced to team up with Hotel Rwanda's Don Cheadle's dedicated FBI agent in pursuit of a gang of international drug smugglers. The Guard is directed by John Michael McDonagh and executive-produced by his playwright brother Martin McDonagh who directed Gleeson in In Bruges. McDonagh previously wrote and produced Ned Kelly and made his directorial debut with an 11-minute short starring Adrian Gillen.

My impression of 2009 as a vintage Cannes Film Festival is confirmed by Jacques Audiard's stunningly innovative crime thriller A Prophet (left)– winner of the Cannes Grand Prix – scooping London Film Festival's inaugural best film award, while Michael Haneke's Palme d'Or winner The White Ribbon came out top at the Hollywood Film Awards. Both are nominated for a possible showdown in the best foreign language category at the Oscars. A Prophet is one of the highlights in the IFI French Film Festival, which opens on 19 November with Micmacs, an eye-popping arms-dealing satire from Jean-Pierre Jeunet – director of Delicatessen and Amélie. Other treats are Marcel Provost's hauntingly original biopic Sérafine, dealing with the little-known life of a cleaning woman in early 20th century provincial France who painted secretly at night (it won seven Césars in 2008, but sadly still awaits an Irish release); and a chance to see a lovingly restored version of Monsieur Hulot's Holiday – part of a Jacques Tati retrospective – and a reconstructed version of Henri-George Clouzot's unfinished Inferno, both of which were premiered at Cannes. The festival closes on 29 November with veteran New Wave director Jacques Rivette's latest film Around A Small Mountain. It's a pity 89-year-old Alain Resnais's brilliant romantic melodrama Wild Grass, premiered at Cannes, couldn't also have been included in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the New Wave.