The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo, Chilean writer-director Diego Céspedes’ AIDS bigotry drama and feature debut, has earned the top prize in the Cannes Film Festival’s 2025 Un Certain Regard competition.

Gay Directors, Gay Films? By Emanuel Levy (Columbia University Press)

The winning drama, set in the 1980s, portrays a small mining town in Chile where an unknown illness spreads and gay men are accused of transmitting it with their gaze. Lydia, an 11 year-old girl, sets out to find out the truth.

The Un Certain Regard competition winners were revealed in awards ceremony in the Debussy Theatre on Friday, May 23.

Cleo Diara shared the best actor honors for I Only Rest in the Storm with Frank Dillane for Urchin.

The best screenplay prize went to Harry Lighton for Pillion, which he also directed.

In all, 20 films were selected for this year’s competition, including 9 first films.

That includes Eleanor the Great, Scarlett Johansson’s first turn behind the camera, which stars June Squibb; Harrison Dickinson’s Urchin, a British drama about a homeless man in London; and My Father’s Shadow, a hotly anticipated debut from British-Nigerian filmmaker Akinola Davies, starring actor Sope Dìrísù (Gangs of London and Slow Horses).

This year, British director Molly Manning Walker led the Un Certain Regard jury as president. She was joined by fellow directors Louise Courvoisier and Roberto Minervini; Rotterdam festival director Vanja Kaludjercic, and actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart.