French director and screenwriter Jacques Audiard. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

"I had wanted to make a movie that reflects on the problem of violence, and I happened to found that Sri Lanka – the country where the Tamils in France primarily come from - is a country plagued by the problem," Audiard told Shanghai based magazine The Bund in June.

According to Audiard, that's why he turned to the Tamils living in France - "it is a group of people that do exist, yet are disconnected from society".

"They have a very different understanding towards violence to westerners, which is a very good source for movies," Audiard said.

Dheepan is the third French movie to win the Palme d'Or in the past decade, after Laurent Cante's Between the Walls in 2008 and Abdellatif Kechiche's La Vie d'Adele in 2013.

Audiard is a director and screenwriter. His well-known films include Rust and Bone - which competed for the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2012 and A Prophet – which won the Grand Prize of the Jury at Cannes in 2009.