The jury at the Cannes Film Festival may have decided unanimously to award the Palme D’Or to French film “Entre les Murs,” but they were not going to let Clint “Living Legend” Eastwood walk away without honoring him.

Clint Eastwood was in Cannes last week to present a new film he has directed, “Changeling.” The drama, starring Angelina Jolie, was included among the 22 films competing for the Palme d’Or at the 61st edition of the Cannes Film festival, but lost to French film “Entre les Murs” (“The Class”).

Eastwood has been here before. “Pale Rider,” “Bird” and “White Hunter, Black Heart” have all played in competition at Cannes, along with the more recent “Mystic River,” starring this year’s head of the jury, Sean Penn.

Eastwood has never received the festival’s top award. This time around though, he was honored with a special tribute, receiving, along with French legend Catherine Deneuve, the Prix du 61ème anniversaire - ex aequo.

Penn said during a press conference that artists such as Deneuve and Eastwood “are largely, for many of us, why we got into film,” and that “it would be so artificial to not acknowledge them and the weight that their work and their presence brought this Festival.”

“Changeling,” presented at Cannes as “The Exchange,” is based on a real life story set in the Los Angeles of the 1920s. Jolie portrays Christine Collins, a single mother whose 9-year-old boy disappears.

In despair, she goes to the police, beseeching them to return her boy, but the case is going nowhere. The police department, seeping with corruption, needs to somehow handle the situation which is throwing a bad light on those shiny badges.

A boy is returned to the desperate mother and when she claims that the child is not her flesh and blood, she is locked away in a mental institution.

“Changeling” premiered Tuesday, May 20, at the Cannes Film Festival and received ample praise for Eastwood, Jolie and writer J. Michael Straczynski. John Malkovich has a supporting role as a radio preacher who supports Collins. The cast also includes Geoff Pierson, Jeffrey Donovan, Jason Butler Harner, Colm Feore, Amy Ryan and Michael Kelly.

Film critics have been enthusiastic over Jolie’s performance and the awards season is likely to bring “Changeling” further glory. The film is scheduled for release in the United States on November 7.

Eastwood has made a smooth shift from his tough image of a couple of decades ago, as star of the “Dirty Harry” films, to that of an introspective, meticulous and soulful director.

He made his directorial debut in 1971 with the thriller “Play Misty For Me” and received Academy Awards for best picture and director for “Unforgiven” (1992) and “Million Dollar Baby” (2004).

Other directorial projects that have won him praise are “The Bridges of Madison County,” “Space Cowboys” and “Letters from Iwo Jima.”

Among the nine members of the Cannes jury were actress Natalie Portman, director Alfonso Cuaron, filmmaker Marjane Satrapi and actor Sergio Castellitto.