U.S. director Michael Moore reacts as he holds the Palme d'Or for his winning film entry "Fahrenheit 9/11" during the awards ceremony at the 57th Cannes Film Festival , May 22, 2004. The film, by Michael Moore, is a documentary that criticizes US President and the war in Iraq.(Photo: Xinhua/Reuters)

U.S. director Michael Moore arrives with his wife for the awards ceremony at the 57th Cannes film Festival, May 22, 2004. Moore won the Palme d'Or for his documentary film entry "Fahrenheit 9/11."	U.S. director Michael Moore holds the Palme d'Or for his documentary film "Fahrenheit 9/11" during a special red carpet arrival in his honor at the 57th Cannes Film Festival , May 23, 2004.

(Photo: Xinhua/Reuters)

    PARIS, May 22 (Xinhuanet) -- "Fahrenheit 9/11," a documentary that criticizes US President George W. Bush and the war in Iraq, won the Cannes film festival's top honor Palme d'Or on Saturday.

    The movie, directed by Michael Moore, was chosen from a field of 19 films by a jury led this year by director Quentin Tarantino.It is the first time a documentary has won the top Cannes award.

    Moore dedicated the award "to all the children in America, and in Iraq and around the world who have suffered from our actions."

    "Fahrenheit 9/11" spans the changes in the United States under Bush since the 2000 US elections, through the Sept.11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, and the subsequent US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

    Moore, who won an Oscar last year for his previous documentary,"Bowling for Columbine," said during the Cannes festival that he believed his new film could help deliver a crushing defeat to Bushin November presidential elections.

    "I have this great hope that things are going to change. I'm not alone. There are millions of Americans just like me, and I'm just like them," he said.

    The grand prize, the festival's second-place honor, went to South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook's "Old Boy," a blood-soaked thriller about a man out for revenge after years of inexplicable imprisonment.

    The best-actress award went to China's Maggie Cheung for her role in "Clean" as a junkie trying to straighten out her life and regain custody of her young son after her rock-star boyfriend dies of a drug overdose.

    A 14-year-old Japanese named Yagira Yuuya was named best actor for the Japanese film "Nobody Knows," in which he plays the eldestof four siblings raised in isolation, who must take charge of the family when their mother leaves.

    Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul won the festival's third-place jury prize for his film with no dialogue "Tropical Malady."

    Another jury prize went to Irma P. Hall for her role as an elderly Southern woman who foils a casino robbery in the Coen brothers' crime comedy "The Ladykillers," starring Tom Hanks as the heist's ringleader.

    Keren Yedaya's "Or," about a Tel Aviv prostitute in failing health and her teenage daughter, won the Golden Camera award for best film by a first-time director.

    The festival is to wrap up Sunday with screenings of award winners and other key movies that played during the festival. Enditem