A week filled with several films about family wrapped up on a sunny note this weekend in Normandy where the Deauville Festival of American Film awarded its jury prize to Mother And Child.

The Rodrigo Garcia-directed film was one of the most star-studded amongst the 12-film strong competition. Annette Bening, who was in town as the subject of an homage and also to present The Kids Are All Right last Friday, stars in the grand prize winner along with Naomi Watts, Kerry Washington, Jimmy Smits and Samuel L. Jackson. Haut et Court releases Mother And Child in November in France

Sharing the Jury Prize were David Robert Mitchell’s The Myth Of The American Sleepover, which Metropolitan is releasing in France, and Winter’s Bone, the Debra Granik movie that is generating a lot of early Oscar heat for star Jennifer Lawrence. Pretty Pictures has that film in France.

The Cartier Prix de la Revelation went to Holy Rollers (Jewish Connection) by Kevin Asch. Pyramide will release the film in France early next year.

The International Critics Prize was awarded to Rodrgo Cortes’ Ryan Reynolds thriller Buried. In a year strong on films already with local distribution, Buried is yet another title set for release later this year. (This is very often not the case in Deauville – even one of last year’s competitors, Youth In Revolt, is only being released this fall in France) Studio 37/Rezo Films has Buried.

Earlier in the week, author Joyce Carol Oates was in town to pick up a literary prize for Blonde, the novel about Marilyn Monroe which, Screen exclusively announced in May,  Andrew Dominik is gearing up to adapt with Naomi Watts as Monroe. The Michel d’Ornano Prize, for a first French film, went to Angele Et Tony by Alix Delaporte.

The main jury was presided over by Emmanuelle Beart along with Jeanne Balibar, Christine Citti, Lucas Belvaux, Faouzi Bensaidi, Fabrice du Welz, Nilda Fernandez, Tonhy Gatlif, Denis Lavant and Abderrahmane Sissako.

In a darker bit of news, folks in Deauville were all abuzz at the sudden passing of eminent French auteur Claude Chabrol.