The feature paints a humorous portrait of a violent young man who falls for a woman after fighting her.

Edwin, who uses a single name, had already returned to Jakarta before the awards ceremony but the organisers put out a video in which he said the Golden Leopard was “happiness… it’s a nice support and it motivates.

“We need this energy in this not so easy time.”

Indonesian cinema was still young, he said, as was most of the cinema in the region.

“I feel connected with the whole southeast Asian region because we are facing more or less the same spirit and also at the same time facing the same problem: you know we have censorship, we have violence here and there.

“We are very excited with the growth of our cinema,” he added.

To close the 74th Locarno festival a lifetime achievement award was made to Italian director Dario Argento, including for his leading role in Gaspar Noe’s Vortex about an elderly couple coping with Alzheimer’s disease.

Founded in 1946, the film festival celebrates art-house films every August in the Italian-speaking city of Locarno in southern Switzerland.