Argentine-French actress Berenice Bejo has been awarded top prize at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival for her turn in Iranian director Asghar Farhadi's drama The Past.
Bejo, 36, received the Best Actress award at the 66th edition of Cannes film festival during a ceremony held on Sunday, May 26, 2013.
This year’s competition jury announced the festival's most prestigious award Palme d'Or to the French movie Blue Is the Warmest Color directed by Abdellatif Kechiche.
The 2013 Cannes Grand Prize also went to the American drama film Inside Llewyn Davis directed by Ethan and Joel Coen.
Academy Award-winning director Asghar Farhadi’s Paris-set tale drama The Past (Le Passé) was nominated for the Palme d'Or at this year’s Cannes festival.
The movie was also named winner of the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the 2013 Cannes International Film Festival.
The Prize of the Ecumenical Jury (prix du Jury œcuménique) was conferred on Farhadi for his film’s moral values, according to the statement of the jury.
The movie has received warm critical acclaim by both French movie goers during its short public screening in the country’s movie theaters (since last week) and those ones who followed the film in its premier at Cannes film festival.
Farhadi’s immigrant romantic drama depicts the story of an Iranian man who deserts his French wife and two children to return to his homeland. When he comes back to Paris upon his wife's request for a divorce encounters with a complicated situation of the family there.
French actor of Algerian origin, Tahar Rahim and the acclaimed Iranian director and actor Ali Mosaffa also star in the movie.
The Past is Farhadi’s sixth directorial experience and first one in a foreign country that was shot in the French capital, Paris.
Asghar Farhadi’s 2012 drama A Separation scooped the Best Foreign Film Award at the 84th edition of Academy Awards.
The 66th Cannes International Film Festival that kicked off on May 15 wrapped up during a closing ceremony held on May 26, 2013.