Sofia Coppola makes history with her Cannes prize win

From Digital Spy

Sofia Coppola has made history tonight by becoming the second ever female winner of the Cannes Film Festival's Best Director prize.

In the festival's 70-year history, only one other female director has picked up the prize in 1961 when Soviet filmmaker Yuliya Solntseva won for The Chronicles of Flaming Years.

Coppola's win comes for her film The Beguiled, a feminist adaptation of Thomas P Cullinan's novel and Clint Eastwood's 1971 film of the same name.

The Beguiled stars Nicole Kidman as the headmistress of a secluded school for girls in Virginia during the American Civil War.

The young women have been sheltered from the outside world, but their lifestyle is disrupted when they take in a wounded Union soldier and the house is soon take over by sexual tension, rivalries and unexpected events.

Elle Fanning, Kirsten Dunst and Colin Farrell all also star in the film.

It was a good night for Nicole Kidman at the Cannes Awards Ceremony too, as the actress won the specially-created 70th Anniversary Prizethe specially-created 70th Anniversary Prize.

Alongside The Beguiled, Nicole starred in three other projects screened at this year's festival, including The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Top of the Lake and special screening How to Talk to Girls at Parties.

Will Smith, a member of this year's Cannes jury, accepted the award on Nicole's behalf with a speech that included his imitation of the actress as she would be if she'd given the speech in French while crying, but his "speech" was soon followed by a video of the actress herself thanking the jury herself.

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