The Cannes Film Festival began rolling out its awards Saturday with Kazakh director Sergey Dvortsevoy's film Tulcan about a young man's dreams for a new life in a harsh landscape winning the prize for one of the 12-day movie marathon's key sections, dpa reported.
The award was made as part of the Un Certain Regard section, which showcases young and experimental filmmakers and in a sense acts as a curtain raiser for the announcement at a gala ceremony Sunday of the festival's top honours, its coveted Palme d'Or.
In handing out the prizes, the Un Certain Regard jury, which this year was headed up by Turkish-German director Fatih Akin, had to select from 20 films from 23 countries including movies from Germany, Japan, Taiwan and Britain. Seven of the movies were first films.
Japanese director Kurosawa Kiyoshi also won the Un Certain Regard jury prize for his film Tokyo Sonata and German director Andreas Dresen won the Heartthrob jury prize for Cloud Nine (Wolke).
Other prizes went to James Toback's biopic of boxer Mike Tyson and Jean-Stephane Sauvaire's Johnny Mad Dog.
Earlier in the day, the jury of the International Federation of Film Critics announced that Hungarian director Kornel Mundruczo's Delta, which is also one of 22 films in the race for the Palme d'Or, had won the festival's critics prize.
In Delta, a young man is introduced to a sister he never knew existed after he returned to a wild and isolated landscape where villagers are cut off from the outside world.
The international critics also awarded prizes to London-born director Steve McQueen for Hunger and Bouli Lanners' Eldorado.