The Cannes Independent Film Festival concluded on Saturday (May 22) with the announcement of the awards. The festival, which runs alongside but is completely independent of Festival de Cannes, features the best low-budget indie films.

The winners include first-time UK director Becky Preston who won the CIFF's award for best Film for her afterlife drama "Lovelorn" with a budget of €200k.

"It's superb to win at CIFF -- a festival that really recognises great indie talent. As first-time feature team, winning Best Film means a great deal us. A huge thank you to CIFF for their support of independent films," Preston said.

Also winning is Aussie actress Natalie Eleftheriadis who took the Best Actor award for the film "Birthday". Other winners are Kenyan filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu's "Pumzi" for Best Short Film, and American documentarian Cassie Jaye's "Daddy I Do" for Best Documentary.

From May 12 to 22, the Cannes Independent Film Festival showed over 40 features and 90 short films from all over the world. The screenings were held at the screening room of the CIFF Villa, Palais des Festivals and other top screening venues. The CIFF Villa was also the house of 6 teams of participating filmmalers during the festival.

Like us on Facebook

"We felt the time was right to inject a bit of indie film power into Cannes. The response from filmmakers, film lovers and the industry has been overwhelmingly positive and we're all looking forward to seeing the festival grow" said Erich Schultz, festival director.

To contact the editor, e-mail: