Majid Majidi's "Midday Meal" took Busan's best film prize Thursday night, and with it an automatic, committee-free route into the Oscars' best international feature race. That's the real story here. The seven-member jury, led by Zhang Yimou, reached its decision unanimously — a clean sweep that ground-level buzz in Busan had predicted all week.

What does the win change in the Oscar race?

Plenty. Under Academy rules, Busan's best film winner can be submitted for international feature consideration without going through its country's Oscar committee. Busan — which launched its main competition only last year, aligning itself with Europe's top festivals — now sits alongside Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Sundance and Toronto on the Academy's list of festivals whose designated awards carry that privilege.

Iran has already picked its official entry: Babak Khajehpasha's "Land of Angels," a drama about children enduring the war in Gaza. "Midday Meal" now has an open, alternate path into the 99th Academy Awards. Majidi knows this territory. His "Children of Heaven" (1997) became the first Iranian film ever nominated in the category, then called best foreign-language film.

A political speech on the Busan stage

Accepting the award at the Busan Cinema Center, Majidi dedicated the prize to the people of Iran and condemned the civilian toll of the U.S.-led war on his country.

"I would like to dedicate this prize to the brave heroes of Iran — the people of Iran, who have stood firm through all these years and are still resisting oppression," he said.

He went further. "On the very first day of this war in Iran, a school in Minab was hit, and 120 innocent students were killed. Even now, some of the bodies have not been found," Majidi said. "What crime have our people committed? There is nothing except that our people want to be independent. They will stand firm until the end."

Earlier in the festival, Majidi told a press conference he had nearly declined the trip to South Korea, feeling depressed and exhausted by conditions at home. He came anyway, he said, to carry "some kind of small message from my people to the people of other nations and other places."

Who made the film, and how?

"Midday Meal" follows Davoud Soulan (Mohammad Rahimi), a contract teacher in a remote southeastern Iranian village whose shot at a permanent government job collapses when a wealthy benefactor dies and the free lunches keeping his impoverished pupils in school disappear. He turns to increasingly desperate measures, including cross-border fuel smuggling.

Majidi assembled an entirely nonprofessional cast through street casting, shooting against the stark, so-called Martian Mountains. The film extends his career-long focus on moral pressure at society's margins, seen in "The Color of Paradise" (1999) and "Baran" (2001).

Who else won in Busan?

• Special jury prize: Eddie Cahyono's "Ibuku" (Indonesia), starring Christine Hakim as a widow facing her late husband's gambling debts
• Best director: Taiwan's Lee Yun Chan for "To Be Ordinary" — a Busan return, since his debut "The Shoe Fairy" played New Currents in 2005
• Best actor: China's Zhou Xun for "The First Taste of Loneliness" and Japanese newcomer Kashun Himeno for her screen debut in "Satoko Always"
• Artistic contribution: Li Danfeng's sound work on "The First Taste of Loneliness"
• New Currents Award: India's Shashank Walia for "Birds in the Dark," a black-and-white Punjabi-language drama that also won the Songwon Vision Audience Award
• New Currents special mention: South Korean director Lim Hayeon's debut "Beach Fictions"

Zhang's jury — including Bi Gan, Moon Choi, Kei Ishikawa, July Jung, Tran Thi Bich Ngoc and Samal Yeslyamova — judged 13 competition titles.

How big was the festival?

Busan's 31st edition, running Oct. 6-15, drew more than 200,000 moviegoers, its biggest crowd since 2015, with another 77,000 attending other programs. Organizers credited an adjusted opening schedule and expanded screenings. The Asian Contents & Film Market (Oct. 10-13) pulled in 30,484 participants and 339 companies from 32 countries. Alfonso Cuarón made his first visit to South Korea; Michelle Yeoh took Asian Filmmaker of the Year; Ann Hui accepted the Camellia Award.