The Austrian director thanked her team, many fellow writers and directors themselves, and said she would like to “hold on to those quirky and weird thoughts” that creatives tend to ignore in their initial senselessness, but that “hopefully stay with you a little longer.”

Other winners included Abinash Bikram Shah’s Elephants in the Fog, the first Nepali film in Cannes Un Certain Regard, about trans acceptance in South Asia, and Louis Clichy’s “Iron Boy,” a visually dazzling and deeply personal hand-painted animated acquired by Sony Pictures Classics.

The UCR jury awarded the female trio at the centre of Valentina Maurel’s “Forever Your Maternal Animal” — Daniela Marín Navarro, Marina de Tavira and Mariangel Villegas — and Bradley Fiomona Dembeasset’s breakout turn in Rafiki Fariala’s “Congo Boy.” “Forever Your Maternal Animal” was Costa Rica’s first film in Un Certain Regard. Director Maurel hoped that the selection of her film signalled a broadening space for Latin American filmmakers at major festivals, particularly for female directors.

Fiomona Dembeasset roused the audience at the Debussy screening room by finishing his impassioned speech, delivered in song:“I am a young Congolese! I am a refugee! I am a star!”

This year’s Un Certain Regard jury was presided over by French actress Leila Bekhti, who rose to prominence in Jacques Audiard’s Cannes Grand Prize-winning “A Prophet”. Bekthi was joined by French director Thomas Cailley, whose “Animal Kingdom” opened UCR in 2023, Senegalese producer Angele Diabang, Italian director Laura Samani, Lebanese composer Khaled Mouzanar.

Full list of winners:

Prix Un Certain Regard: “Everytime,” by Sandra Wollner

Jury Prize: “Elephants in the Fog,” by Abinash Bikram Shah

Special Jury Prize: “Iron Boy,” directed by Louis Clichy

Best Actress: Daniela Marín Navarro, Marina de Tavira and Mariangel Villegas for “Forever Your Maternal Animal”

Best Actor: Bradley Fiomona Dembeasset for “Congo Boy”