Golden night for Tender Loving Care

Katie O'Flynn with Marion Bailey and Alice Bailey Johnson in Mike Leigh's Tender Loving Care Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival

British director Mike Leigh had a golden night at San Sebastian Film Festival as his social drama Tender Loving Care won the Golden Shell for Best Film as well as the Best Screenplay prize and the Best Performance Silver Shell for Katie O'Flynn - who shared the prize with Asta Kamma August for her role in Norwegian drama Growth Of The Soil.

Leigh has said it is "more than probable" this will be his last film, due to the autoimmune muscle disease myositis. Tender Loving Care is, as its title suggests, about various forms of looking after one another, and charts the friendship between social workers Amy (O'Flynn) and Rosie (Alice Bailey Johnson) and how it helps Amy as her parents (Marion Bailey and Paul Jesson) face the tests of age.

Kamma August, who shared the acting prize, plays a woman with a cleft palate in Hans Peter Molland's multi-year saga, as she attempts to forge a life in the mountainsn with a man she meets unexpectedly. The drama, which also won the cinematography Jury Prize for Oskar Dahlsbakken.

The Silver Shell for Best Director went to Amanda Kernell for her Sami drama Brace Your Heart, while Javier Cámara won the Silver Shell for Best Supporting Performance for time loop comedy 5 More Minutes. The Special Jury Prize was awarded to Border, directed by Ah Biao.

The City of Donostia/San Sebastián Audience Award went to La Bola Negra, which also recently took the audience award at Toronto Film Festival.

The main competition jury was presided over by director Ira Sachs and features director/screenwriter Genki Kawamura, screenwriter Catherine Paillé, actress/producer Alice Braga, actress Patricia López Arnaiz, actor Bill Skarsgård, and producer Mike Goodridge.

German drama Body Of Glass, directed by Naëmi Ada, won the New Directors award, while the Horizontes Make & Mark top prize went to The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer.

The full list of awards is below:

● Golden Shell for Best Film - Tender Loving Care, Dir: Mike Leigh

● Special Jury Prize - Border, Dir: Ah Biao

● Silver Shell for best director, Amanda Kernell for Brace Your Heart

● Silver Shell For Best Leading Performance (ex aequo) - Kate O’Flynn for Tender Loving Care and Asta Kamma August for Growth Of The Soil

● Silver Shell For Best Supporting Performance - Javier Cámara for 5 More Minutes

● Jury prize for Best Screenplay - Mike Leigh for Tender Loving Care

● Jury prize for Best Cinematography - Oskar Dahlsbakken for Growth Of The Soil

● Transforma Make & Mark Award - Tender Loving Care, Dir. Mike Leigh

● Kutxabank-New Directors Award - Body of Glass, Dir: Naëmi Ada

● Special mention - The World Before, Dir: Yoon Dan-bi.

● Horizontes Make & Mark Award - The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer, Dir: Alessandra Sanguinetti

● Special mention - Flies, Dir: Fernando Eimbcke

● Zabaltegi-Tabakalera Award - Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Dir: Jane Schoenbrun

● Special mentions - Sometimes Sadness, Sometimes Rebellion, Dir: María Aparicio

● Audience award - La Bola Negra, Dir: Javier Calvo, Javier Ambrossi

● Audience award for a European film - Naza, Dir: Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor

● SGAE Award for the Best Soundtrack - Amine Bouhafa for Milo, by Nicole Garcia

● Culinary Cinema Award - Burgundy, Dir: Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw

● Nest The Mediapro Studio award - Erased From The Map, Dir: Maarij Reka

● Special Mention - Nobody Barks, Dir: Júlia Coldwell Serra

● Irizar Basque film award - Txakun Txakür (Fr-Sp), Dir: Elsa Oliarj-Inès

● Dama Youth award - The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer (Arg-US), Dir: Alessandra Sanguinetti