French director Pierre Jolivet's drama "The Night Watchman" bagged the Golden Goblet for best film at the 18th Shanghai Film Festival.
"Watchman" aka "Jamais de la Vie", starring Olilier Gourmet, Marc Zinga and Valerie Bonneton, is the tale of a former skilled worker, whose life has turned to drudgery as a shopping mall security guard, and who siezes a chance to take control of his life again.
Actor Marc Zinga accepted the trophy on behalf of Jolivet, reported Variety.
Other awards at the festival were dominated by "The Dead End" as it won the best director honour for Cao Baoping and three of his cast, Deng Chao, Duan Yihong and Guo Tao, sharing the best actor award.
Best actress went to Krista Kosonen for "The Midwife", while the best screenplay gong went to Patrick Tobin for "Cake", directed by Daniel Barnz.
The Jury Grand Prize went to Polish director Jacek Lusinski for "Carte Blanche".
The jury at the nine-day festival (June 13-21) was headed by Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev, whose most recent movie "Leviathan" won the best screenplay award at Cannes last year.
The jury also included Chinese director Cai Shangjun, Chinese actress Hao Lei, French director and screenwriter Philippe Muyl, Hong Kong producer Nansun Shi and US producer Ron Yerxa.
The event was overshadowed by a request by the festival for Korean guests to stay away because of an outbreak there of the deadly Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).
Tomm Moore's "Song of the Sea" won the award for best animated film, while Oh Seung-uk's "The Shameless" won the outstanding artistic achievement award.
Vladislav Opeliyants won best cinematography for his work on Nikita Mikhalkov's "Sunstroke".
The best documentary film award went to "The Verse of Us" by Wu Feiyue and Qin Xiaoyu.
