BERLIN (Reuters) - A low-budget film from Bosnia swept aside veteran directors Robert Altman and Sidney Lumet as well as previous winner Michael Winterbottom to win the top prize at the Berlin film festival.
"Grbavica," the touching story of a woman who seeks to protect her daughter from the awful truth of her past, is an understated but powerful examination of how women are traumatized to this day by the horrors of the Balkans war.
The first feature film for young Sarajevo director Jasmila Zbanic was the surprise winner of the Golden Bear award for best film at a gala ceremony late on Saturday.
Her politically charged acceptance speech reflected the atmosphere in Berlin, where Michael Winterbottom's "The Road to Guantanamo," a stinging attack on the U.S. military base in Cuba, was among the highlights.
"War in Bosnia was over some 13 years ago and yet war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic still live in Europe freely," said Zbanic, whose film spotlights the hushed-up issue rape of 20,000 women during the siege of Sarajevo.
"They've not been captured for organising the rape of 20,000 women in Bosnia (and) killing 100,000. This is Europe and no one is interested in capturing them. I hope that this will change your viewing on Bosnia."
Winterbottom, who won the Silver Bear for best director, also used his platform to get across a serious message.
"Obviously if Guantanamo closes that would be a great thing," said Winterbottom. "Before Guantanamo existed no one could have believed that the Americans would set up a prison in Cuba ... would keep them (prisoners) without trial for four years."
GERMANS HONOURED
Politics aside, Berlin lived up to its reputation for hard-hitting cinema, with rape, suicide, mental breakdown and injustice brought to the big screen.
German actors dominated, with Sandra Hueller winning best actress Silver Bear for "Requiem" and Moritz Bleibtreu named best actor for "Elementarteilchen" ("The Elementary Particles").
Juergen Vogel also won a Silver Bear for artistic contribution for his portrayal of a serial rapist in "Der Freie Wille" (The Free Will).
Two films won the Jury Grand Prix runner-up prize.
Iranian film "Offside" is about the futile efforts of women and girls to get into a soccer match in Tehran, and "En Soap" ("A Soap") centers on a Danish woman and her increasingly intimate relationship with a transsexual living next door.
Amid the grim storylines, though, were two more commercial pictures from Altman and Lumet that provided some comic relief.
Altman's "A Prairie Home Companion," about an old-fashioned radio show threatened with closure starring Meryl Streep and Woody Harrelson, had journalists laughing aloud at its premiere.
And Lumet's "Find Me Guilty," with action hero Vin Diesel as the lead, took the action back to the courtroom nearly 50 years after his classic "Twelve Angry Men."
Expressing surprise that his film had been named one of the 19 main competition entrants, Lumet joked:
"It's not a festival story because it's not boring."
By Mike Collett-White and Erik Kirschbaum
Reuters/VNU
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