Roch Stephanik has been awarded the Cyril Collard prize for his first feature film, Stand By, which also recently won a Best actress Cesar award for its lead, Dominique Blanc.

Stand By -- produced by Salome (Maurice Bernart) and Diaphana (Claude Saint-Jean) on a shoestring budget -- had been given a limited release last summer, attracting only 26,305 admissions.

Diaphana has now re-released the title - a dramatic comedy about a woman left behind by her husband at Orly Airport who stays on, earning a living as a prostitute, which also features Roschdy Zem, Patrick Catalifo, Georges Corraface and Jean-Luc Bideau -- on 15 prints, in Paris, Lyons, Marseilles and Nice.

The Ffr200,000 prize, created by French/German cultural channel Arte, is meant to help its recipient develop a new project.