At the closing ceremony of the 54th Cannes Film Festival last night the jury presented the major prize, the Palme d'Or, to the Italian entry, La Stanza del Figlio (The Son's Room), a powerful, deeply moving drama in which a warm, close-knit family is devastated by the death of the 17-year-old son in an accident.
The award was accepted by Nanni Moretti, the film's director, producer and co-writer, who also plays the boy's father.
The film has been the critical favourite since it was shown to a sustained ovation at the festival on Thursday night, and the jury's decision was loudly cheered last night. It will help restore the reputation of the festival after a series of highly contentious decisions by Cannes juries in recent years to honour films which attracted minimal audiences in most parts of the world.
La Stanza del Figlio also received the international critics' award for best film in competition at the festival.
The other triumphant film at the awards ceremony was the French entry, La Pianiste (The Piano Teacher), which took three major prizes - the runner-up award, Le Grand Prix du Jury, for its German director, Michael Haneke, best actress for Isabelle Huppert and best actor for Benoit Magimel. Many viewers were disturbed by the frankness of this drama involving a sexually frustrated piano teacher in her 40s and a cocky new student.
In what will be perceived as a sop to American cinema, the best director award was shared by Joel Coen for The Man Who Wasn't There and David Lynch for Mulholland Drive. There were no awards for the opening film, the musical, Moulin Rouge, nor for the US animation comedy, Shrek, and the brooding drama, The Pledge, directed by Sean Penn and starring Jack Nicholson.
Asian cinema was very strongly represented in the competition with seven entries out of 23, but received only one award, the technical prize to sound engineer Tu Duu-Chin for his work on two films, Millennium Mambo and What Time Is It There?
Ireland was represented by Barry Dignam's three-minute Chicken, one of 12 international entries selected for the short film competition, and it was well received in the shorts programme on Saturday. However, the Palme d'Or for best short went to the US entry, Bean Cake, directed by David Greenspan.
The festival jury award for best screenplay went to Danis Tanovic for his serious comedy on the Bosnian conflict, No Man's Land. The Camera d'Or for best first feature was given to the Canadian Inuit director, Zacharias Kunuk for Atanar juat, the Fast Runner. The Ecumenical jury awarded its annual Cannes prize to the Iranian director, Mohsen Makhmal baf, for his unflinching depiction of the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan in Kandahar. The closing ceremony was compered by Charlotte Rampling.