US director Julian Schnabel delivers a speech after winning the Best Director award for his film 'Le Scaphandre et le Papillon' during the Closing ceremony of the 60th edition of the Cannes Film Festival at the Festival Palace in Cannes, southern France.[AFP]

US painter and filmmaker Julian Schnabel won the best director prize Sunday at Cannes for his French-language tragedy "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."

The picture tells the true story of an Elle magazine editor left paralysed and mute by a stroke, who bravely went on to dictate what became an international bestseller just by blinking an eye.

An exuberant Schnabel shook the hands of each of the nine jury members and thanked his all-French cast including lead actor Mathieu Amalric ("Munich") and a female ensemble of wives, lovers and caregivers.

"I thought I was making a movie about a paralysed guy but I realised I was making a film about women," he said, asking the actresses to stand for applause.

"Many times they say the problem with France is the French but that's a lie."

Schnabel, who commands top dollar for his paintings and sculptures, said he was stunned by the award.

"In my wildest dreams I would never believe I was here because basically I'm just a movie fan -- I never thought I was going to be a movie director."

The subject of the film, Jean-Dominque Bauby, was a fast-living playboy, the toast of the Paris fashion world, until he suffered a debilitating stroke at the age of 42.

Schnabel shows him waking up in a seaside hospital after weeks in a coma and suffering from what a neurologist calls "locked-in syndrome" -- he is unable to speak or move any part of his body apart from his left eyelid.

The title refers to Bauby's feeling of being trapped in his body, which has come to resemble the airtight chamber of a diving bell, and his still active mind, still agile as a butterfly.

He is taught to communicate using a system in which the alphabet is recited to him and he spells out words by blinking when he hears the letter he wants to use.

A patient publishing assistant takes his dictation for his memoir in this way over the course of many excruciating months.

The real Bauby died 10 days after the release of the book in 1997. The account became an international hit translated into several languages.

Many viewers wept at the premiere of the film, which has inspired a bidding war for the international rights.

Schnabel won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice film festival in 2000 for "Before Night Falls" set in Cuba and starring Javier Bardem.