 Director Ruben Ostlund reacts to winning the Palme d'Or award for his film The Square just after it was announced during the awards ceremony at the 70th international film festival, Cannes, southern France,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Director Ruben Ostlund reacts to winning the Palme d'Or award for his film The Square just after it was announced during the awards ceremony at the 70th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Sunday, May 28, 2017. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant) (Associated Press) 
 
 CANNES, France (AP) — 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. 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. Coppola’s film, an adaptation of Thomas Cullinan’s Civil War novel about a wounded Union officer who is found by the residents of an all-girls boarding school, stars Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, and Colin Farrell and looks fantastic. Coppola was one of three female filmmakers out of 19 in competition for the Palme this year. The last time that happened, the award went to Soviet director Yuliya Solntseva for her World War II film The Story of the Flaming Years—in 1961. Acting awards went to Diane Kruger for In the Fade, her first German-language starring role, and Joaquin Phoenix for You Were Never Really Here. Fatih Akin's courtroom and revenge drama saw the German actress doing a German-language film for the first time. "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. The Grand Prix went to BPM, Robin Campillo’s film about the French gay rights struggle focusing on ACT UP–Paris, while Loveless, Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s story of a couple whose child goes missing, won the Jury Prize. 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. Kidman also received a special award in honor of the festival’s 70th anniversary; she appeared in four films that screened at Cannes this year, two of which were in competition.
– Sofia Coppola scored a historic victory at the Cannes Film Festival on Sunday night when she became only the second woman in the event's 70-year history to win the best director award. The American, who won with Civil War drama The Beguiled, is the first woman to win since Soviet director Yuliya Soltsneva, who was awarded the prize in 1961 for World War II movie The Story of the Flaming Years, Slate reports. The coveted Palme D'Or prize went to Swedish writer-director Ruben Ostlund's comedy The Square, the AP reports. Diane Kruger won best actress and Joaquin Phoenix was named best actor. Coppola, one of three women among the 19 directors in the competition this year, was not present to accept her prize but she released a statement saying it was an "exciting start" to be honored in Cannes. "I'm thankful to my great team and cast and to Focus and Universal for their support of women-driven films," she said, per the Hollywood Reporter. Beguiled star Nicole Kidman also missed the ceremony, where she was honored with a special prize to mark the festival's 70th anniversary. Jury member Will Smith collected it on her behalf, pretending to cry and saying, "Merci beaucoup madam and monsieurs!"