Haneke's 'The White Ribbon' wins Cannes top prize

Austrian director Michael Haneke poses next to the president of the jury French, actress Isabelle Huppert, after being awarded with the Palme d'Or for his movie "Das Weisse Band" (The White Ribbon) during the Closing Ceremony of the 62nd Ca

CANNES: Austrian director Michael Haneke's somber drama "The White Ribbon", a chilling story about rural Germany in the build-up to World War One, has won the Palme d'Or for Best Film at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.

French director Jacques Audiard scooped the Grand Prix award for gripping prison story "A Prophet".

Brillante Mendoza from the Philippines walked away with the Best Director's Prize for "Kinatay", which literally means "Butchered", a story based on kidnap, rape and murder incidents.

The Jury Prize was shared by Andrea Arnold's teen story of "Fish Tank" from Britain and Park Chan-wook's vampire tale of "Thirst" from South Korea.

The enfant terrible of Chinese cinema, Lou Ye, won the Best Screenplay Award for his tale of marital discord and homosexual jealousy in "Spring Fever".

Banned by Beijing from making movies for six years after his 2006 controversial "Summer Palace", Lou made "Spring Fever" secretly in Nanjing and also got it selected for the Festival's top Competition slot.

Christoph Waltz got the Best Actor Award for his ruthless, sarcastic, comic, but brilliant portrayal of Nazi Colonel Landa in Quentin Tarantino's World War II saga, "Inglorious Basterds".

The Camera d'Or for the Best Debut Feature went to "Samson and Delilah by Warwick Thornton".