May 25, 2008, 20:11 GMT
Cannes, France - French director Laurent Cantet on Sunday won the Palme d'Or for best film of the 2008 Cannes Film Festival for his movie The Class (Entre Les Murs) about teacher-pupil relationships in a multicultural school classroom in France.
French director Laurent Cantet (C) poses for photographers with a group of Paris junior high school students after receiving the Palme d'Or Award for his film 'Entre Les Murs' (The Class) at the 61st edition of the Cannes Film Festival, 25 May 2008, in Cannes, France. EPA/GUILLAUME HORCAJUELO
A total of 22 films vied for the Palme d'Or, which is one of the most prestigious awards in cinema, with the win ending France's long- running losing streak at the world's leading film festival.
The last time France emerged from the festival with top honours was more than a decade ago.
Screened during the final days of the competition, The Class is a riveting docu-drama with Cantet using real teachers and students from to play out roles in a tough Parisian school.
Based on an autobiographical novel by Francois Begaudeau, a young French teacher, Genet turns the classroom portrayed in his movie into a microcosm of contemporary France.
Begaudeau also plays the role of a dedicated but sometimes flawed teacher in the film with the young cast of The Class' joining Cantet on stage to accept the Palme d'Or, a moment the director described as deeply moving.
The last French film to walked away with the Palme d'Or for best film at Cannes - in 1987 - was Maurice Pialat's Under the Sun of Satan, a melodrama about a 16-year-old girl who kills her lover and the priest to whom she confesses the crime.
A total of 22 films were part of the 12-day festival's main competition.
Italian directors also scored top awards at the Cannes festival with the nation's two films entered in the fest main competition winning key prizes.
While Paolo Sorrentino was awarded the jury prize for his political satire about Italy's seven-time prime minister Giulio Andreotti, Matteo Garrone's powerful Mafia expose, Gomorrah, emerged from the 12-day festival with the Grand Prix, which is the third prize after Palme d'Or.
Turkey's Nuri Bilge Ceylan won the festival's best director award for his brooding family drama Three Monkeys (Uc Maymum).
In accepting the prize, Ceylan said he was dedicating the award 'to my beautiful country, which I love passionately.'
The nine-head festival headed by US actor-turned-director- screenwriter Sean Penn also acknowledged the strong presence of Latin American themed films at this year's festival.
Sandra Corveloni was awarded the best actress prize for her role in Linha de Passe from Brazilian directors Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas which tells the story of four brothers trying to follow their dreams in the Sao Paulo slums.
The best actor award went to Benicio Del Toro who played Che Guevara in Hollywood director Steven Soderbergh's more-than four hour two-part epic about the Latin American revolutionary leader.
Del Toro said he wanted to dedicate the award 'to the man himself.'
The Cannes festival award for best screenplay went to Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne for Lorna's Silence which looks at immigration in modern Europe as told by a young Albanian woman who is caught up in the murky business of arranged marriages.
The festival's Camera d'Or for best first feature film went to London-born Steve McQueen's Hunger about the so-called troubles in Northern Ireland.
Once again Romania also demonstrated that it has emerged as a key filmmaking nation with Marian Crisan winning the festival's award for best short film for his movie, Megatron.
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