Cruz, "Barley" Cannes Do

It was definitely a good weekend for Brad Pitt.

Not only did the world join him in heralding the arrival of the most genetically blessed offspring in all the land, but his latest big screen venture, the Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu-directed Babel, took home a prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Talk about a two-fer.

The French festival wrapped up its 11-day run Sunday with a ceremony honoring a bevy of foreign films, including Babel, Volver and Red Road, and awarding Ken Loach's The Wind That Shakes the Barley with the fest's coveted Palme d'Or.

The war-themed period piece is set in 1920's Ireland and stars Cillian Murphy as a medical student who fought for independence amid the British occupation. The film was Loach's eighth overall entry into the festival, but his first time nabbing the grand prize, which he did in a unanimous vote as chosen by jury members Samuel L. Jackson, Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Roth, Monica Bellucci and Ziyi Zhang.

"This is a grand honor," he said upon accepting the gilded nod. "Our film is a little step in the British confronting their imperialist history. Maybe if we tell the truth about the past we can tell the truth about the present.

"It's very exciting to be able to deal with [politics] in films, and not just be a complement to the popcorn."

Angela Arnold, who made her feature-length directing debut with Red Road, also took home a top nod, receiving the Jury Prize for the Scottish thriller in which a woman stalks a man for reasons only revealed to the audience at the film's end.

Inarritu nabbed the Best Director prize for Babel, which featured, in addition to an absent Pitt, Cate Blanchett and Gael Garcia Bernal. The multicultural drama weaved together stories connecting families in Morocco, Japan and the U.S., and according to Inarritu, incorporated the blood, sweat and tears of more than 1,000 crew members.

"I'm receiving this award on behalf of all of them," he said. "It's a collaborative art and I owe them all this award. This is a dream for me, I can't believe it happened. And my kids will not believe that I received my award from Tim Burton."

Spain's festival entry, the Pedro Almodóvar-written and directed Volver, nabbed two prizes at the ceremony, taking home both the Best Screenplay Award and the collective Best Actress award, which went to the film's female ensemble cast, among them Penélope Cruz.

"You cannot highlight one over another," Almodovar said of his leading ladies' joint nod. "The film is about family...the performances are complementary."

"It's such an honor to be able to share this award with all these amazing women," Cruz said. "I think this award really belongs to Pedro, the master...Thank you so much, Pedro, for what you do for women."

It was the director's second time leaving the festival with some heavy metal. He was previously honored in 1999 with the Best Director award for the Cruz-starring All About My Mother.

Meanwhile, the Best Actor award also went to an ensemble, doled out to the men in Rachid Bouchareb's Days of Glory. The Algerian film chronicled North African soldiers who battled the French in WWII.

While foreign films flourished at Cannes, U.S. produced efforts didn't fare nearly so well.

The festival opener, the highly anticipated and controversial The Da Vinci Code was widely panned following its debut screening. Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation was greeted with indifference and the star-studded Southland Tales, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Seann William Scott, among others, was received with scathing criticism.

While all U.S. films in the festival competition were shut out, some that screened out of competition fared more favorably.

X-Men: The Last Stand debuted at the festival and went on to pocket $120.1 million its opening weekend, marking the highest-grossing Memorial Day weekend in history. Al Gore's global warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, was also relatively well-received as was the animated flick Over the Hedge. The latter also made a big showing at the weekend box office, taking in $35.3 million.