Montreal: Claire Denis’ film Beau Travail has won the Banque Laurentienne’s Louvre D’Or, the top jury prize in the feature competition at this year’s 28th edition of the Montreal International Festival of New Cinema and New Media. The French director’s film is a historical drama set among French Foreign Legion troops in Colonial Africa. Denis received $5,000 at a festival wrap ceremony, Oct. 24. The film was among 25 eligible entries.

Two feature-length Canadian films shared the $2,000 Telefilm Canada prize, Mike Hoolboom’s Panic Bodies and the Peter Wintonick documentary Cinema Verite – Defining the Moment/Le Moment Decisif, a National Film Board English and French Program coproduction chronicling the documentary movements in the ’50s and ’60s.

Other Canadian winners are Alain Pelletier for the short film Die Dyer and Eva Quintas and Michel Lefebvre for the cd-rom Liquidation. Anna Thomson won a special performance award for her brilliant role in Amos Kollek’s film Sue.

The $5,000 Volkswagen public choice award went to Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami for Le Vent Nous Emportera.

This year’s festival was the first to be held at the new high-tech Ex-Centris complex. Festival director Claude Chamberlan says attendance more than doubled over last year.