Top 'Class' - French Film Wins Palme D'Or

French film 'The Class' has won the prestigious Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
The film, which was directed by Laurent Cantet, about a year in the lives of students and their teacher in a Paris school, became the first French film to win the Palme d'Or since 'Under Satan's Son' in 1987.
Clint Eastwood's 'Changeling', a drama about a missing child starring Angelina Jolie, had been in the running for the Palme d'Or, but received a special award instead. French actress Catherine Deneuve also received a special prize.
'Gomorrah, a movie about organised crime in Naples, based on a book by Roberto Saviano, too the runner-up prize, the Grand Prix.
'Hunger', the directorial debut of British aritst Steve McQueen won the Camera d'Or prize in the festival's secondary Un Certain Regard competition. The film, about IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, starred Michael Fassbender as Sands and Liam Cunningham.
Benicio Del Toro won the best actor award for his role as Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara in Steven Soderbergh's biopic 'Che', while Brazilian Sandra Corveloni won the best actress award for her role as a single mother in Sao Paulo in 'Linha De Passe' ('Line of Passage').
Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan won the best director award for drama 'Three Monkeys'.
Paolo Sorrentino's film about former Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, 'Il Divo' won the jury prize, while Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne won the best screenplay award for 'Lorna's Silence', a bout a young female immigrant in Belgium.
The festival's closing film was 'What Just Happened', an adaptation of Art Linson's book, starring Robert De Niro as a faded Hollywood producer.
(KMcA)