CANNES, France (Reuters) - “The Square”, a Swedish movie about the curator of a museum filled with grotesquely pretentious conceptual art, beat stiff competition to win the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival on Sunday.

70th Cannes Film Festival - Closing ceremony - Cannes, France. 28/05/2017. Director Ruben Ostlund , Palme d'Or award winner for his film "The Square", reacts. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe - RTX3805K

Critics hailed the movie by writer-director Ruben Ostlund as “high-wire cinema” that veers between comedy and thriller with moments of pure surrealism, though some said it could easily have shed part of its 2 hours and 22 minutes running time.

The film’s highlight is a dinner for the museum’s well-to-do patrons, with a performance artist leaping from table to table impersonating an ape in a bizarre, tense and ultimately violent scene.

Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar, who headed the jury of nine people that included Hollywood stars Will Smith and Jessica Chastain, said the film was about “the dictatorship of being politically correct”.

“Such a serious subject is treated with an incredible imagination. It is very, very, very funny,” he said.

“BPM (Beats Per Minute)”, a French movie about AIDS awareness campaigners in the 1980s, had been favorite for the award but had to settle for second place, taking the Grand Prize of the Jury, something Almodovar seemed to regret.

“This is a very democratic jury and I am the ninth part of this jury,” he said and fought back tears as he talked of the film’s portrayal of “real heroes that saved many lives”.

Sofia Coppola won best director for “The Beguiled”, a remake of the 1971 Clint Eastwood tale of sexual tension between an injured soldier in the American Civil War and the women and girls who take him in.

Although members of the jury said she was the first woman to win that prize, the history books show that Soviet director Yuliya Solntseva won it in 1961.

Nicole Kidman, who starred alongside Colin Farrell in “The Beguiled” and “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” missed out on the best actress trophy but was awarded a special prize, collecting the jury’s 70th Anniversary Award.

Best actress went to Diane Kruger for her performance in German film “In the Fade”, playing a woman trying to put her life back together after her husband and young son are killed in a bomb attack. It was her first role in her native German.

Joaquin Phoenix was named best actor for his portrayal of a psychologically damaged hitman in “You Were Never Really Here” by British director Scottish director Lynne Ramsay, who shared the prize for best screenplay with the writers of “The Killing of a Sacred Deer”, Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou.

Video-streaming company Netflix, which had two acclaimed movies in competition, left empty handed. It’s lack of success should have come as no surprise, given that Almodovar said at the start of the festival that the Palme d’Or should not go a movie that would not be given a theatrical release.</s>The Cannes Film Festival awarded its coveted Palme d’Or award to Ruben Ostlund’s Swedish comedy “The Square” on Sunday, while Sofia Coppola became only the second woman to win the best director award.

“Oh my god! OK,” the Swedish filmmaker exclaimed after he bounded onto the stage to collect the prestigious Palme, in a rare and somewhat surprising win for a comedy.</s>The Cannes Film Festival jury has awarded its coveted Palme d’Or award to Ruben Ostlund’s The Square.

“Oh my god! OK,” the Swedish filmmaker exclaimed after he bounded onto the stage to collect the prize.

He led the crowd in a cheer, too.

Ostlund previously won the Jury Prize in the 2014 festival’s Un Certain Regard section for Force Majeure.

Dominic West, Elisabeth Moss and Claes Bang star in The Square.</s>The Square has won the top prize of Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Ruben Östlund, the Swedish filmmaker behind the drama, previously also won the Jury Prize in the 2014 festival's Un Certain Regard section for "Force Majeure."</s>Swedish film The Square has won the prestigious Palme D’or at the Cannes Film Festival.

The satirical film, directed by Ruben Ostlund, is about the director of a contemporary art museum who stages a new exhibition called "The Square" in a bid to attract publicity.

The concept is that, inside the square, everyone is encouraged to behave responsibly. However, the director himself has his phone and wallet stolen inside the installation and sets out to find the thief.

Starring Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss and The Wire’s Dominic West, it had been well-received by critics after being released on 19 May.

The film was described by the Cannes jury, overseen by Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, as “clever, witty and funny” and dealing with “important questions”.

Mr Almodovar added that it was a "rich" masterpiece that tackled the "horrific dictatorship" of political correctness.

As the festival drew to a close, it was announced that Joaquin Phoenix had won best actor for his role in thriller You Were Never Really Here, while Diane Kruger took home the best actress award for her part in In The Fade.

Sofia Coppola was handed the best director prize for The Beguiled, becoming only the second woman in the festival’s 70-year history to win the award.

​Coppola’s remake is a feminist adaptation of Clint Eastwood’s 1971 version of the film, which is about a girls school in 1864 Virginia and the events that take place when some of the pupils discover a wounded Union Army soldier.

A special prize to mark the film festival’s 70th anniversary was awarded to Nicole Kidman.</s>The art-word satire The Square has won the Palme d’Or at the 2017 Cannes film festival. Directed by Ruben Östlund, The Square is about a museum director (played by Claes Bang) who is desperate to make a success of his gallery, and stages a new installation called “The Square” to promote it.

The Square was well received after its debut on 19 May, earning a string of glowing reviews. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw gave it four stars, saying it created “some gobsmackingly weird and outrageous spectacle, with moments of pure showstopping freakiness”.

Swedish director Östlund is best known for his previous film, Force Majeure, which also addressed the toxic nature of middle-class guilt. The film also starred Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss and The Wire’s Dominic West, as well as an already-celebrated appearance from animal-movement expert Terry Notary, as a performance artist who impersonates an ape.

The Square’s victory somewhat upset the formbook, as much attention appeared to be focussing on Andrei Zvyagintsev’s eerie fable Loveless, about a woman searching for her husband who lost in the Russian prison system, and Robin Campillo’s 120 Beats per Minute, about the French arm of the Aids-activist Act-Up movement. In the end they were awarded the jury prize and grand prix, respectively, the festival’s notional third and second prizes.

The jury, presided over by Spanish film-maker Pedro Almodovar, gave two awards to Lynne Ramsay’s sex-traffic thriller You Were Never Really Here: a joint best screenplay award and best actor to Joaquin Phoenix; the latter appeared shellshocked to win, and took to the stage wearing Converse sneakers.

The best actress award went to Diane Kruger, who played a woman seeking revenge for her husband’s death in a terrorist bombing in In the Fade, directed by Fatih Akin; although the film itself received largely negative reaction – including a two-star review from the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw – Kruger’s first performance in her native German was well-liked. Kruger dedicated her win to everyone who “has survived an act of terrorism and who is trying to pick up the pieces and go on living after having lost everything”.

Sofia Coppola became only the second woman to win Cannes’ best director award (the first being Yuliya Solntseva in 1961 for the Russian film The Story of the Flaming Years). Coppola’s adaptation of Thomas Cullinan’s The Beguiled won many plaudits, and in a statement read out by jury member Maren Ade Coppola thanked Jane Campion, the only female Palme d’Or winner to date, for being a “role model”.

The Camera d’Or for best first film went to Jeune Femme, from French director Léonor Serraille, while the maker of the best short film, Qiu Yang, declared the award “fucking amazing”.

As suggested earlier in the festival by Almodovar, neither of the Netflix-backed selections in the competition – the ensemble comedy The Meyerowitz Stories and giant-pig eco-fable Okja – received any award recognition.</s>(CANNES, France) — The Cannes Film Festival awarded its coveted Palme d'Or award to Ruben Ostlund's Swedish comedy "The Square" on Sunday, while Sofia Coppola became only the second woman to win the best director award.

"Oh my god! OK," the Swedish filmmaker exclaimed after he bounded onto the stage to collect the prestigious Palme, in a rare and somewhat surprising win for a comedy.

In "The Square," Claes Bang plays a museum director whose manicured life begins to unravel after a series of events that upset his, and the museum's, calm equilibrium. The movie's title comes from an art installation that Bang's character is prepping, which invites anyone who enters a small square to be kind and generous.

The film's satire and exploration of moral dilemmas culminated in one of the festival's most eye-catching scenes. A muscled, grunting man pretending to be a gorilla upsets a black-tie dinner for the museum, sniffing attendees and dragging a woman by the hair.

The president of the Cannes jury, Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar, praised the film for exploring the "dictatorship" of political correctness and those trapped by it.

"They live in a kind of hell because of that," Almodovar said.

"It's clever. It's witty. It's funny. It deals with questions so important," said French actress and filmmaker Agnes Jaoui, a member of the jury that also included Americans Will Smith and Jessica Chastain.

Most odds makers didn't have "The Square" as a favorite to win the prestigious Palme d'Or, the top prize awarded at Cannes.

Coppola won best director for "The Beguiled," her remake of Don Siegel's 1971 Civil War drama about a Union soldier hiding out in a Southern girls' school. Hailed as Coppola's most feminist work yet, the remade thriller told from a more female point of view stars Nicole Kidman and Kirsten Dunst, with Colin Farrell playing the wounded soldier.

Coppola was one of three female filmmakers out of 19 in competition for the Palme this year. The first — and until now, only — female winner of the best director prize was Soviet director Yuliya Ippolitovna Solntseva in 1961.

Diane Kruger was named best actress and Joaquin Phoenix best actor as the festival celebrated its 70th anniversary.

Kruger was honored for her performance in Fatih Akin's "In the Fade." She played a German woman whose son and Turkish husband are killed in a bomb attack. The film alludes to a series of actual killings that shook Germany six years ago, when it came to light that police had spent more time investigating the possible mob connections of migrant victims than the tell-tale signs of the far-right plot eventually uncovered.

"I cannot accept this award without thinking about anyone who has ever been affected by an act of terrorism and who is trying to pick up the pieces and go on living after having lost everything," the actress said. "Please know that you are not forgotten."

Phoenix was recognized for his role in Lynne Ramsay's thriller "You Were Never Really Here," in which he played a tormented war veteran trying to save a teenage girl from a sex trafficking ring.

The actor wore sneakers on stage as he collected the prize. He said his leather shoes had been flown ahead of him. He apologized for his appearance, saying the prize was "totally unexpected."

The French AIDS drama "120 Beats Per Minute" won the Grand Prize from the jury. The award recognizes a strong film that missed out on the Palme d'Or.

Directed by Robin Campillo, the co-screenwriter of the Palme d'Or-winning film "The Class," the movie centers on the activist group ACT UP in Paris in the 1990s during the AIDS crisis.

The film's docu-drama retelling of that painful period, combined with a burgeoning spirit of unity for the gay community, earned it some of the best reviews of the festival.

The jury also presented a special prize to Nicole Kidman to celebrate the festival's 70th anniversary.

Kidman wasn't at the French Rivera ceremony, but sent a video message from Nashville, saying she was "absolutely devastated" to miss the show.

Jury member Smith made the best of the situation, pretending to be Kidman.

He fake-cried and said in halting French, "merci beaucoup madames et monsieurs."

There were no prizes for the first Netflix releases selected to be in competition for the Palme d'Or: Bong Joon-ho's "Okja" and Noah Baumbach's "The Meyerowitz Stories."

Almodovar had made clear beforehand that he didn't want the Palme to go to a movie that isn't shown on big screens. The Netflix selections prompted protests from French movie distributors and led Cannes to rule out, beginning next year, streaming-only films.</s>Russian film director Andrey Zvyaginstev has won the Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize for his bleak family drama , TASS reports.

The Award Ceremony of the 70th annual Cannes Film Festival was held on May 28.

Zvyaginstev’s is a story of divorcing couple who must team up to find their son who goes missing during one of their quarrels. The film opened the Cannes film competition program and received the highest score from Screen’s critics.

This is the third Cannes award for Zvyaginstev. His won the Special Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section in 2011, and won the Best Screenplay Award in 2014.</s>The Cannes Film Festival jury has awarded its coveted Palme d’Or award to Ruben Ostlund’s The Square.

“Oh my god! OK,” the Swedish filmmaker exclaimed after he bounded onto the stage to collect the prize.

He led the crowd in a cheer, too.

Ostlund previously won the Jury Prize in the 2014 festival’s Un Certain Regard section for Force Majeure.

Dominic West, Elisabeth Moss and Claes Bang star in The Square.

Bang plays the curator of an art museum, who sets up The Square, an installation inviting passers-by to altruism.

But after he reacts foolishly to the theft of his phone, the respected father of two finds himself dragged into shameful situations.</s>The Cannes film festival has reached its final night, with awards dished out to Ruben Östlund for The Square, Joaquin Phoenix and Lynne Ramsay
The Square, a Swedish film directed by Ruben Östlund, wins the Palme d'Or, the top award at the Cannes Film Festival.