Hou Hsiao-Hsien wins Best Director award at Cannes

Director Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Best Director award winner for his film "The Assassin" (Nie yin niang), poses during a photocall after the closing ceremony of the 68th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France, May 24, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

This is the seventh time that Hou Hsiao-Hsien's movie is competing for the Palme d'Or. He won the Jury Prize in 1993 and the Technical Grand Prize in 2001, respectively for his movies The Puppetmaster and Millenium Mambo.

France is the biggest winner of this year's Festival de Cannes, as French actor and actress won the Best Actor and Actress Awards.

French actor Vincent Lindon won his very first prize in his career for portraying a middleaged man fighting with unemployment.

French actress Emmanuelle Berco, whose directing movie was the opening film of the festival, won the Best Actress for her role in Mon Roi, a movie of the passionate and destructive love between a couple in their forties during a 10-year period.

But she had to share the honor with American actress Rooney Mara who played in a lesbian theme movie Carol as a department store clerk.

Also, for the first time in the history of the Festival de Cannes, the Palme d'honneur was given to a woman, French director Agnes Varda.

Yorgos Lanthimos, who competed for the first time this year in the main competition at Cannes, won the Jury Prize for his movie The Lobster, while the Grand Prize was given to Hungarian director Laszlo Nemes' Saul Fia (Son of Saul).

Mexican director and screenplay writer Michel Franco won, for his movie Chronic, the Best Screenplay Award, which Chinese director Jia Zhangke won in 2013.

A total of 19 films were selected this year to compete for the top prize Palme d'Or.

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