"EXTRAORDINARY FILE"

Director Laurent Cantet said his cast of young actors was moved when they watched the film for the first time.

"I think they felt that the film talked about them, about their world and they had the feeling that they'd done something important," he told Reuters before jury head Sean Penn awarded the Palme d'Or to what he called "an extraordinary film".

The jury's choices on the final night were mostly popular.

Benicio del Toro won best actor for his portrayal of Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Steven Soderbergh's film and the best actress award went to Sandra Corveloni in the Brazilian drama "Linha de Passe".

The Grand Prix runner-up prize went to Italy's "Gomorra" (Gomorrah), Matteo Garrone's hard-hitting film about the camorra Naples crime network, and Turkey's Nuri Bilge Ceylan won best director for "Three Monkeys", a dark tale of family secrets.

There were some surprises at the red carpet ceremony, which brought the curtain down on the 12-day movie marathon.

Israeli animated documentary "Waltz With Bashir" went unrecognised, despite being praised for its haunting retelling of a conscript's efforts to dig up buried memories of the 1982 massacre of Palestinians in Beirut's refugee camps.

Eastwood was in competition with "The Exchange" starring Jolie as a 1920s mother whose son goes missing.

Some French media grumbled that the Hollywood veteran failed to win a major honour.

Le Figaro newspaper called his special award a "chocolate medal", a consolation prize which it suggested might have explained his absence from the closing ceremony.

"No empty seat has ever been as obvious as this."