Cannes Film Festival ends with gala ceremony for top awards

The 71st Cannes Film Festival ends Saturday when the world's leading movie showcase rolls out its prestigious prizes, including the iconic Palme d'Or for best picture.

A nine-member jury headed by Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett has to select from the 21 films comprising this year's main competition when handing out the festival's awards at a gala event in the French Mediterranean resort town.

Leading contenders for this year's Palme d'Or include Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski's passionate love story "Cold War," and Japan's Hirokazu Kore-eda's "Shoplifters," about a family of petty thieves.

Russia's Kirill Serebrennikov also stands a chance with "Leto" ("Summertime"), which tells the story of the 1980's Russian pop sensation Viktor Tsoi.

But film festival juries are notoriously difficult to predict with veteran US director Spike Lee's new take on US race relations, "Blackkklansman" popular with festivalgoers along with South Korea's Lee Chang-Dong's mystery thriller "Burning."

Lebanese director Nadine Labaki's "Capharnaum" about the plight of illegal immigrants as well as the exploitation of their children is also seen in Cannes as a contender for a major prize.

The same is true of Italy's Alice Rohrwacher for a story about a young man time travelling in "Lazzaro Felice" ("Happy as Lazzaro").

A win for Labaki or Rohrwacher would represent only the second time that a woman director has won the Palme d'Or.

Italy's Matteo Garrone's revenge movie "Dogman" is also seen as a contender.

The jury, which included former "Twilight" series star Kristen Stewart, Canadian director Denis Villeneuve and Russian independent film-maker Andrey Zvyagintsev, also has to award the festival prizes for best director, best actor and actress.