The Japanese film "Like Father, Like Son" ("Soshite Chichi ni Naru") by director Hirokazu Koreeda received a special commendation Saturday from the Ecumenical Jury at the 66th Cannes international film festival.

The Ecumenical Jury's top award went to "The Past," directed by Iran's Asghar Farhadi.

The festival has awarded the prize to independent feature films since 1974. Created by Christian filmmakers, critics and other movie professionals, it is handed out separately from the festival's official awards.

Koreeda's drama stars Masaharu Fukuyama and was also entered in the competition division of the festival. The movie depicts a middle-class couple who learn the child they have raised for six years is not their biological son, and was switched at birth with a baby from a poorer family.

It is the third film by Koreeda to be screened at Cannes in nine years. In 2004, Yuya Yagira won the best actor award for his role in Koreeda's "Nobody Knows" ("Dare mo Shiranai").

The festival on France's southern coast, which opened with Baz Luhrmann's 3-D movie "The Great Gatsby," starring Leonardo DiCaprio, was set to end later Sunday after the official awards, including the coveted Palme d'Or, were announced.