Director Michael Haneke arrives for the awards ceremony at the 65th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Sunday, May 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan)
Director Michael Haneke arrives for the awards ceremony at the 65th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Sunday, May 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan)
Director Michael Haneke, right, and actress Emmanuelle Riva arrive for the awards ceremony at the 65th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Sunday, May 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan)
From left, members of the jury Nanni Moretti, Emmanuelle Devos, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Diane Kruger, Raoul Peck and Alexander Payne pose during a photo call for the members of the jury at the 65th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Wednesday, May 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau)
From left, members of the jury Nanni Moretti, Emmanuelle Devos, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Diane Kruger and Raoul Peck pose during a photo call for the members of the jury at the 65th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Wednesday, May 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau)
Director Michael Haneke, left, and actor Jean-Louis Trintignant arrive for the awards ceremony at the 65th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Sunday, May 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan)
CANNES, France (AP) ? Michael Haneke won the Cannes Film Festival's top prize for a second time Sunday with his stark film about love and death, "Amour."
The Austrian director's powerful and understated film stars two French acting icons ? 85-year-old Emmanuelle Riva and 81-year-old Jean-Louis Trintignant ? as an elderly couple coping with the wife's worsening health.
Haneke previously won the Palme in 2009 for "The White Ribbon," and is the seventh director to take the top prize twice.
The festival jury awarded the second-place Grand Prize to Matteo Garrone's Italian satire "Reality," while Ken Loach's whiskey-tasting comedy "The Angels' Share" won the third-place Jury Prize.
Carlos Reygadas was named best director for his surrealism-tinged story of a Mexican family, "Post Tenebras Lux."
The best actor prize went to Mads Mikkelsen as a man ostracized by his small-town community when he is accused of child abuse in "The Hunt."
Jury member Ewan McGregor said Mikkelsen had given a beautiful performance whose "wonder is in the subtlety ... but with complete conviction with his character."
Best actress was won jointly by Cristina Flutur and Cosmina Stratan for Romanian movie "Beyond the Hills." Cristian Mungiu's drama of love and faith in a remote Romanian monastery also won the award for best screenplay.
The festival is wrapping up Sunday in the French Riviera resort.
The prize winners were chosen by a jury, led by Italian director Nanni Moretti, that included actors Ewan McGregor and Diane Kruger, director Alexander Payne and fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier.
Moretti revealed that none of the winners had been a unanimous choice.
The 12-day festival has seen plenty of glamour, with the likes of Brad Pitt, Nicole Kidman, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart appearing both on-screen and on the red carpet.
But in the movies, weighty themes dominated at an event whose French Riviera froth was subdued by several days of unseasonable rain and cold.
Despite a strong American flavor to the festival, U.S. films were shut out apart from Benh Zeitli's "Beasts of the Southern Wild," which won the Camera d'Or for best first film.
The jury overlooked Pitt, who plays a cynical mob enforcer in Andrew Dominik's "Killing Them Softly," and Kidman as a Southern femme fatale in Lee Daniels' "The Paperboy."
Payne said it would be wrong to draw any conclusions about the state of a nation's cinema "based on one tiny snapshot."
Other much-praised performances at the festival included Marion Cotillard's tragedy-struck killer-whale trainer in "Rust and Bone," newcomer Paul Brannigan's scrappy Glasgow lad in "The Angels' Share," and Denis Lavant, as a performer who takes on a host of bizarre personas in "Holy Motors."
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Online: http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en.html
Thomas Adamson can be reached at http://Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP.
Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless
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