Sunday, May 22 2005 09:13 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Cannes: Sibling filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's "The Child", about a 20-year-old petty crook suddenly faced with the responsibilities of fatherhood, won top honours at the Cannes Film Festival.

It was the second time a film by the Belgian brothers won the prestigious Palme d'Or, coming six years after their teen drama `"Rosetta'' took the main Cannes prize.

The award was presented by Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman, who won Academy Awards in February for Clint Eastwood's boxing saga "Million Dollar Baby.''

Receiving the second-place grand prize was US director Jim Jarmusch's "Broken Flowers,'' a droll drama starring Bill Murray as an aging Don Juan in pursuit of the son he never knew he had.

Tommy Lee Jones was honoured as best actor for "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada,'' his feature-film directing debut in which he plays a Texas ranch hand who forces his best friend's killer (Barry Pepper) to dig up the body and haul it for reburial in Mexico. The film also won the screenplay award for Mexican writer Guillermo Arriaga.

Hanna Laslo earned the best-actress prize for her role as a gabby cabdriver in Israeli director Amos Gitai's "Free Zone,'' a road-trip tale through the Middle East.

Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke received the directing award for "Hidden,'' his cryptic thriller about a couple menaced by a video stalker.

The third-place jury prize was given to Chinese director Wang Xiaoshuai's "Shanghai Dreams," a love story set among workers who dutifully obeyed the Government's call to relocate to factories in a remote new territory in the 1960s.

The award for best film by a first-time director was shared by US filmmaker Miranda July for "Me and You and Everyone We Know'' and Vimukthi Jayasundara of Sri Lanka for "The Forsaken Land.''

Romanian director Cristi Puiu's "The Death of Mr Lazarescu,'' a tale of a lonely widower living with three cats, won the top prize in a secondary Cannes competition called "Un Certain Regard.'' July's "Me and You and Everyone We Know,'' took main honours in a third Cannes category overseen by critics.

Awards night was a quieter affair than last year, when firebrand Michael Moore took the top prize, the Palme d'Or, for "Fahrenheit 9/11,'' his scathing critique of US President George W Bush over the Sept 11 attacks and the Iraq war.

The lineup of 21 films in the main competition did not produce any universally loathed turkeys such as Vincent Gallo's "The Brown Bunny'' two years ago, but it also did not offer any odds-on favourites that had audiences raving.

The consensus among Cannes crowds was that the main competition produced a solid but unremarkable crop of films.