A Romanian film on a small budget, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, has won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The Palme d’Or went to director Cristian Mongiu whose film told the story of a Romanian girl seeking an abortion during the Communist era.

In his acceptance speech, Mongui said “It’s a little bit like a fairy tale to be here. One year ago we hadn’t any idea for the project. Six months ago we didn’t have any money.”

He called his win “Good news for the small film from the small country,” and said it showed “You don’t necessarily need a big budget and a lot of stars for a story to which a lot of people will listen.”

4 Months beat out big budget Hollywood fare like Death Proof, Zodiac, and We Own the Night.

Other winners included runner-up, the Japanese film Mogari No Mori (The Mourning Forest), a movie about a young nurse at a retirement home who tries to protect an Alzheimer’s patient who searches for his wife’s grave in the forest. Director Naomi Kawase is one of only a few woman to win a director’s prize at Cannes. The grand prize has gone to a female director just once in 60 years.

Best director went to American Julian Schnabel for the French film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which is based on the story of a magazine editor was was paralyzed by stroke and learned to write by blinking his eyelids into an assistive device.

Gus Van Sant got a special 60th anniversay prize for Paranoid Park, a movie about a young skateboarder who accidentally causes a death. The film was cast through MySpace.

Best actress was awarded to South Korea’s Jeon Do-yeon for Secret Sunshine, and best actor was Russia’s Konstantin Lavronenko for The Banishment.

Best screenplay went to The Edge of Heaven, by Turkish-German director Fatih Aki.

The Palme d’Or was presented by Jane Fonda, who was surprised with her own career Palme d’Or, which was only the fourth time a career award was given in the festival’s 60 year history.

Thanks to Photorazzi for most of these pictures.