Iranian director Majid Majidi has won Best Film, the top Busan Award, at the 31st Busan International Film Festival in South Korea for "Midday Meal".
The award was announced at the ceremony on Thursday, according to Variety, which reported the result alongside other outlets.
The win automatically qualifies the film for the Best International Feature category at the Oscars, Deadline reported. Under new Academy rules, the film does not need Iran to submit it.
Iran has already entered a different film, "Land of Angels" by Babak Khajehpasha, as its official submission for the 99th Academy Awards, according to Variety and Yahoo.
According to Yahoo Entertainment, the seven-member jury was led by Chinese director Zhang Yimou. It said its decision was unanimous.
Variety described the film as following a rural schoolteacher who makes difficult moral choices so that his students keep receiving a free lunch despite government cuts.
Deadline gave a slightly different description. It said the teacher, played by Mohammad Rahimi, struggles to keep the school open after the death of a benefactor.
Yahoo reported that the cast is entirely non-professional and was found through street casting. The film was shot in Iran's "Martian Mountains", it said.
Mr Majidi dedicated the award to the people of Iran, according to Yahoo and South Korea's Kyunghyang Shinmun. The newspaper, which translated his remarks, quoted him as saying: "I hope a world without war will come."
Variety and the film industry newsletter written by Patrick Frater reported that the speech referred to an attack on a school in Minab. Iran's state-run PressTV described the remarks as a tribute to the schoolchildren of Minab.
The exact wording of the reference was not available to Tehran Telegraph, and details of the Minab attack have not been independently confirmed. Any account of what happened there, including who was responsible, would need to be attributed.
No response from Iranian officials, Iran's Ministry of Culture or the Busan festival to the speech had been reported by Thursday evening.
Deadline reported that it was Mr Majidi's first trip to Busan. The festival also gave other awards on the night.
The Special Jury Prize went to "Ibuku" by Eddie Cahyono. Lee Yun-chan won Best Director for "To Be Ordinary", and Shashank Walia's "Birds in the Dark" took the New Currents Award, according to Deadline and Yahoo.
Yahoo reported that Busan introduced its main competition only last year, making this the second edition of the award that Mr Majidi won.
Mr Majidi is a veteran Iranian director, best known internationally for "Children of Heaven", according to Deadline.
The Busan International Film Festival was founded in 1995 and is held at the Busan Cinema Center in South Korea. Deadline reported that this year's edition drew more than 200,000 attendees, its highest figure since 2015.
Iranian filmmakers have appeared at the festival before. Mohammad Rasoulof, another Iranian director, chaired the New Currents jury in 2024.
Frater's newsletter described an "ongoing war between Iran and the US", and the Kyunghyang Shinmun referred to "Iran at war". Tehran Telegraph has not yet obtained a sourced account of the war's timeline from either side.
The film remains eligible for the Oscars' International Feature category. Iran's official entry for the 99th Academy Awards remains "Land of Angels".
