Palme d’Or: Abdellatif Kechiche, Blue Is The Warmest Color
Grand Prix: Coen Brothers, Inside Llewyn Davis
Best Director: Amat Escalante, Heli
Cannes Film Festival 2013 Winners
Best Screenplay: Jia Zhangke, A Touch of Sin
Best Actress: Berenice Bejo, The Past
Best Actor: Bruce Dern, Nebraska
Jury Prize: Hirokazu Kore-eda, Like Father, Like Son
Camera d’Or: Anthony Chen, Ilo Ilo
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The film has attracted attention for its s** scenes as well as the acclaimed performances of actresses Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux.
Hollywood veteran Bruce Dern won best actor for his performance in Nebraska.
French star Berenice Bejo, known for silent film The Artist, won best actress for her role in The Past.
The winners were picked from the 20 films in competition and were named at the festival’s closing ceremony on Sunday.
Blue is the Warmest Colour is a three-hour coming-of-age movie in which Adele Exarchopoulos plays a 15-year-old who falls in love with an older woman, played by Lea Seydoux.
Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche, the film won rave reviews in Cannes, being described as “epic yet intimate” by The Guardian.
The film also shocked some critics. The Hollywood Reporter said the “sprawling drama” would “raise eyebrows” as it crossed the barrier “between performance and the real deal”.
Some had questioned whether the s** scenes may make it too e**licit for the top prize.
But director Steven Spielberg, who chaired the jury, told reporters: “I think it will get a lot of play… I think this film carries a very strong message, a very positive message.”
In an unusual move, Steven Spielberg awarded the prize to the two lead actresses as well as the director.
Blue is the Warmest Colour ( La vie d’Adèle) has won the Palme d’Or for best film at Cannes Film Festival 2013
Accepting the prize, Abdellatif Kechiche said: “I should like to dedicate this film to the wonderful youth of France whom I met during the long period while making this film.
“Those young people taught me a lot about the spirit of freedom and living together.”
Blue is the Warmest Colour prevented US film-makers the Coen brothers from repeating their Palme d’Or success of 1991, when they won for Barton Fink.
Their latest film Inside Llewyn Davis, about the 1960s New York folk scene, won this year’s Grand Prix, effectively the runners-up prize.
The best actor award marks a return to the critical bosom for Bruce Dern, who is best known for roles in 1970s films including Coming Home, The Cowboys and The Great Gatsby.
Now 76, Bruce dern has won for playing an ageing, alcoholic father on a road trip to collect a lottery prize. The film, titled Nebraska, was directed by Sideways and The Descendants film-maker Alexander Payne.
Berenice Bejo’s best actress prize has proved that her performance in The Artist was not a one-off. Her film The Past is a family drama made by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi as the follow-up to his Oscar-nominated 2011 drama A Separation.
Mexico’s Amat Escalante, who made brutal drama Heli about the country’s drugs war, was something of a surprise choice for best director.
China’s Jia Zhangke won best screenplay for A Touch of Sin, an examination of rampant corruption in his country.
The Jury Prize went to Like Father, Like Son, about two families who discover that their six-year-old boys were switched at birth, directed by Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda.
Films that missed out included Behind the Candelabra, in which Michael Douglas plays the legendarily flamboyant entertainer Liberace, and Italian director Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty, a sumptuous story about an ageing novelist.
Steven Spielberg was joined on the jury by Life of Pi director Ang Lee, actress Nicole Kidman and Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz.
The other judges were We Need To Talk About Kevin film-maker Lynne Ramsay, French actor Daniel Auteuil, Romanian director Cristian Mungiu, Japanese director Naomi Kawase and Bollywood star Vidya Balan.
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The film has shocked some critics with its s** scenes.
Variety magazine said it contained “the most explosively gr***ic lesbian s** scenes in recent memory”.
The film is the bookmakers’ favorite to win the Palme d’Or on Sunday.
But reviewers have speculated the film may require editing to secure cinema distribution.
The three-hour character study centres on the 15-year-old Adele, played by French actress Adele Exarchopoulos, and her lover Emma, played by Lea Seydoux.
The Hollywood Reporter said the “sprawling drama” would “raise eyebrows” as it crossed the barrier “between performance and the real deal”.
Abdellatif Kechiche, best known for his critically acclaimed 2007 film Couscous, said he would consider cutting some scenes to allow the widest possible audience to see the work.
“We wouldn’t want the film not to be screened because of one scene,” he said.
Blue is the Warmest Colour directed by Abdellatif Kechiche is tipped to win Cannes’ Palme d’Or prize
“But of course that wouldn’t apply if it were the whole thing.”
Meanwhile, director Alexander Payne, best known for his Oscar-winning films The Descendants and Sideways, received a standing ovation at the premiere of his latest production Nebraska.
Cannes judges Nicole Kidman and Ang Lee joined Alexander Payne on the red carpet alongside stars of the road movie, Bruce Dern and Will Forte.
Bruce Dern portrays an ageing resident of the US state of Montana who is convinced he has won $1 million in a sweepstake and is determined to travel to a prize headquarters in Nebraska to collect the winnings.
His son, played by Saturday Night Live comedian Will Forte, agrees to drive him, taking a side trip to the small Nebraska town where his father was born.
Critics have praised the film, which is also a late contender for the Palme d’Or.
In his four-star review, Robbie Collins in the Daily Telegraph described it as a “resounding return to form for Payne”.
The Guardian called Bruce Dern’s performance “terrific” in the “thoroughly sweet and charming movie”.
Elsewhere, the stars at Cannes were at an exclusive hotel on the French Riviera for the 20th American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) gala.
Hosted by actress Sharon Stone, the event attracted stars including Leonardo DiCaprio, Jessica Chastain, Janet Jackson and Goldie Hawn and raised around $25 million for AIDS research.
The Great Gatsby actor Leonardo DiCaprio agreed to travel into space aboard the Virgin Galactic alongside a bidder who paid $1.5 million to join him on the journey.
The event, which also saw bids for Oscar tickets and a six-a-side football game against a team led by Zinedine Zidane, raised more than twice the amount collected last year.
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