2025 Un Certain Regard Winners: ‘The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo,’ ‘Urchin’ and More – Cannes

The 1980s Chilean AIDS surrealist drama The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo has won the top award from the Un Certain Regard section of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.

A first film from director Diego Céspedes, the story follows Lidia, the only girl in her village who all believe that gay men transmit a mysterious disease through their eyes.

Simón Mesa Soto’s black comedy A Poet was the Jury Prize winner for its story of an aging poet finds purpose mentoring a talented teen.

Harry Lighton’s romantic gay BDSM comedy/drama Pillion, an audience favorite of the festival, won the screenplay award. The film stars Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling as an unlikely dom/sub duo.

Palestinian twin brothers Tarzan and Arab Nasser were the Best Director winners for their film Once Upon a Time in Gaza, a story of two young men resorting to drug peddling to get by on the Gaza Strip in 2007.

Sharing the Best Performance were Cléo Diara for I Only Rest in the Storm and Frank Dillane for Harris Dickinson’s directorial debut Urchin.

The 2025 selection included 20 feature films – 9 of which are first features also competing for the Caméra d’or.

Chaired by British director, screenwriter and cinematographer Molly Manning Walker, the Jury included French-Swiss director and screenwriter Louise Courvoisier, Croatian director of the International Film Festival Rotterdam Vanja Kaludjercic, Italian director, producer and screenwriter Roberto Minervini and Argentinian actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart.

Here is the complete list of winners.

Prix Un Certain Regard: The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo, Diego Céspedes

Jury Prize: A Poet, Simón Mesa Soto

Best Director: Tarzan and Arab Nasser, Once Upon a Time in Gaza

Best Actor: Frank Dillane, Urchin

Best Actress: Cléo Diara, I Only Rest in the Storm

Best Screenplay: Harry Lighton, Pillion