Close by Lukas Dhont, about two young boys whose friendship comes to an abrupt end, won the Grand Prix at the 75th Cannes Film Festival, the most important award after the Golden Palm. Second time, second prize for the 31-year-old Belgian director: in 2018, he won the Caméra d'Or for the best debut with Girl.

The Gran Prix ex aequo went to French director Claire Denis. Stars at Noon her second film in the Cannes Competition (after her debut feature Chocolat in 1988) tells the story of a young American journalist stranded in present-day Nicaragua (Margaret Qualley) who falls for an enigmatic Englishman (Joe Alwyn) during her escape from the country. Denis discovered actress Qualley three years ago in Cannes while watching Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Iranian actress Zar Amir-Ebrahimi received the Best Actress award for her role in the Competition film Holy Spider. Directed by Iranian-Danish Ali Abbasi, Holy Spider is inspired by the true story of a working-class man who killed prostitutes in the early 2000s and became known as the Spider Killer. Ebrahimi, who lives in exile in France, became a star in Iran in her early 20s for her role in one of its longest-running soap operas, Nargess.

Maryam Touzani’s The Blue Caftan, starring Lubna Azabal and Saleh Bakri, was welcomed during its World Premiere at Cannes with unanimous applause and nabbed the award as Best Film in Un Certain Regard by the Fipresci jury of international film critics which stated: “The director Touzani was brave enough to devote her gaze to the concealed homosexuality of a married man in Morocco”.

Filmmaker Shaunak Sen's documentary All That Breathes has won the Golden Eye Award for 75th Cannes Film Festival Best Documentary. The film's rights were recently acquired by HBO Documentary Film. The film documents the lives of siblings Mohammad Saud and Nadeem Shehzad, who have dedicated their lives towards rescuing injured birds in the megalopolis of New Dheli. All That Breathes had won the Grand Jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

Mia Hansen-Løve’s Directors’ Fortnight title One Fine Morning won the Europa Cinemas Label Award for Best European Film in Directors’ Fortnight. One Fine Morning stars Léa Seydoux as a young mother who gets caught up in a passionate affair with an old friend while trying to sort out the care of her sick father. The film was chosen by a jury of four exhibitors from the network.