Director Denys Arcand’s “The Barbarian Invasions,” the story of a professor whose friends rally around him as he dies of cancer, won best picture award at France’s version of the Oscars on Saturday.
Arcand, a Canadian, also took the honors for best director and best screenplay at the 2004 Cesar Awards.
The movie has also been nominated for an Oscar for best foreign picture, and it had critics laughing and crying at the Cannes Film Festival this spring.
Meanwhile, Clint Eastwood won the best foreign film award for “Mystic River,” a dark drama about friends haunted by a tragedy from their childhoods. Omar Sharif captured the best actor prize for his performance in “Mr. Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Quran.” He played Parisian grocer who befriends a young French boy.
Sylvie Testud won best actress for her role in “Stupor and Trembling,” about a young French woman who confronts culture shock working in an office in Tokyo.