REFUGEE drama Dheepan carried off this year’s prestigious Golden Palm award at Cannes. Directed by Jaques Audiard, the French film focuses on the eponymous Tamil freedom fighter (Seerank Jesuthasan Antonythasan) who, near the end of the Sri Lankan civil war, flees to Europe to claim asylum.

But starting a new life in the Paris slums proves difficult and Dheepan falls back on his warrior instincts to survive.

A dark modern fairytale, the film has a real sense of lives opening up to a new future, underpinned by a great sympathy for all the characters as they make halting steps in learning French and face the challenge of getting to know each other.

Its’ a film which is full of social and political resonance and it’s all the better for it.

To universal surprise, the Grand Prix went to the debut feature Son of Saul by 38-year-old Hungarian Laszlo Nemes.

Set in Auschwitz, it tells the story of a Jewish prisoner (Geza Rohrig) working in a Sonderkommando unit who were responsible for disposing of bodies in the crematoria after they came out of the gas chambers.

There he finds a corpse he believes is that of his son and sets out to find a rabbi to bury him.

Using a documentary style and with sparse dialogue, Nemes captures the psychological tension of the camps and provides a moving, intense and uncompromising look at the Nazi horror.

Extraordinarily powerful and daring, it’s the kind of film that stays in the mind for days afterwards.

The Best Actress Award was shared between Rooney Mara for her performance in Todd Haynes’s Carol opposite Cate Blanchett and Emmanuelle Bercot for her role in Maiwenn’s Mon Roi.

Gorgeously crafted, Carol captures the intense love affair between an older woman Carol Aird (Blanchett) and Mara as the young shopgirl Therese Belivet.

Based on the 1952 novel by Patricia Highsmith, it memorably explores Belivet’s overactive mind and overheated passion in a story which transcends its lesbian context. It’s very much about the experience of being in love itself.

The best actor award went to Vincent Lindon for his portrayal of an unemployed factory worker who finds a soul-destroying job as a supermarket security guard in Stephane Brize’s The Measure of a Man.

The film pays homage to honest working-class people desperately attempting to make their way in the new Europe and their struggles to make ends meet will be recognisable by many.

Other stand-outs were Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Lobster, which took the Prix du Jury for a satire in which single people are arrested and transferred to “the hotel” where they’re obliged to find a mate in 45 days or be turned into a wild animal.

Another outstanding film was Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth, which not only had two brilliant performances from Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard but marked Kurzel out as an imaginative and courageous director.

Superb in all aspects, his adaptation of Shakespeare’s brutal play displays real skill and confidence and, while it didn’t get any awards, it’s certainly a must-see.

Overall, it was a strong competition this year.

There was a dearth of mediocre films from the usual suspects — instead, the number of politically charged films dealing with social frustrations really made their mark.