Berlin Film Festival starts rolling out prizes (1st Lead)

Feb 19, 2011, 14:11 GMT

Berlin - A film about people in Bolivia fighting plans to privatize their water supply was on Saturday awarded a key prize in one of the Berlin Film Festival's main sections.

The Berlinale's Panorama audience award for Spanish director Iciar Bollain's Tambien la lluvia (Even The Rain) came ahead of the presentation later on Saturday of the Berlinale's top honours at a Hollywood-style gala.

Starring Mexican-born Gael Garcia Bernal, the movie was selected as Spain's entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at this year's Academy Awards.

Moviegoers attending the 61st annual Berlinale were asked to vote for their favourite movie among the 53 films from 29 countries that were screened in the Panorama section, which focuses on more arthouse cinema as well as the movies of up-and-coming directors. More than 23,000 votes were cast.

On Friday, the 25th Teddy Award for best gay and lesbian film in the festival was awarded to the Argentine drama Ausente (Absent).

Directed by Marco Berger, Ausente tells the story of a schoolboy who falls in love with his swimming teacher. The movie borders on becoming a thriller as the teenager attempts to inveigle himself into the teacher's world.

A total of 16 films are in the race for the festival's top award, the Golden Bear for best motion picture. The award is to be handed out by the Berlinale's main competition jury, headed by Italian-born actress Isabella Rossellini.

Leading the race for the Berinale's coveted prize is Iranian director Asghar Farhadi's Jodaeiye Nader az Simin (Nader And Simin, A Separation) - a film about a couple whose lives begin to spin out of control after a court rejects their divorce.

Veteran Hungarian director Bela Tarr's solemn black-and-white A Torinoi Lo (The Horse of Turin) also stands a good chance of securing one of the awards.

Tarr's two-and-half-hour story about an ageing farmer and his dutiful grown-up daughter, who live in a small derelict house in the middle of a cheerless countryside, divided festival-goers - mesmerizing some, while others dismissed it as repetitive and tedious.

Also in the running is US director Joshua Marston's The Forgiveness of Blood, which tells the story of a teenager whose life is turned upside down after his family becomes embroiled in an Albanian blood feud.

The film comes seven years after Marston's critically acclaimed directorial debut Maria Full Of Grace, a Spanish-language film set in Columbia.

But the decisions of film festival juries are notoriously difficult to predict.

One film that also won praise from Berlinale festival-goers was US director JC Chandor's Margin Call, a movie about the financial firestorm that swept the global economy in 2008.

Starring Kevin Spacey, Zachary Quinto and Demi Moore, Margin Call takes its audience on a roller coaster ride over a frantic 24-hour period as a group of bankers battle to save their investment house from collapse.

Also winning some fans at the festival was US director Miranda July's quirky movie The Future about the new pressures on a couple's relationship after they adopt a sick cat.

In addition, the Shakespearean tragedy Coriolanus - the directing debut of British actor Ralph Fiennes - was well received by many movie critics.

Another movie that emerged as a serious contender was German director Andres Veiel's Wer Wenn Nicht Wir (If Not Us, Who), which traced the origins of violent left-wing politics in Germany during the 1960s.

Turkish director Seyfi Teoman's Bizim Buyuk Caresizligimiz (Our Grand Despair) may also snatch an award.

Teoman's romance shows how the peaceful co-existence of two men in their 30s is thrown off course when they allow a friend's sister to move in with them.

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