TILDA SWINTON - PERUVIAN FILM WINS GOLDEN BEAR IN BERLIN

PERUVIAN FILM WINS GOLDEN BEAR IN BERLIN

The dark, socially relevant Peruvian movie The Milk of Sorrow was awarded the Berlin Film Festival's top award, the Golden Bear, Sunday. The story is based on the belief that sorrow can infect mother's milk and that it can the emotion can be passed on to an infant. In the case of movie's lead character, her mother experienced sorrow when she was raped during a bloody civil war in Peru 20 years ago. Raising the Golden Bear trophy above her head, director Claudia Llosa told the awards ceremony, "This is for Peru. This is for our country." In a statement, the jury, headed by actress Tilda Swinton, said that the members had "decided to award prizes to those efforts which achieve a balance between the political statement and the poetic form." Another Latin American country picked up two other major awards. Uruguay tied for the Grand Jury Prize award for Gigante with Germany's Alle Anderen ( Everyone Else ) and also tied (with Poland's Sweet Rush ) for the festival's Alfred Bauer Prize for innovative film making. The film's director, Adrian Biniez, from Argentina, received the award for best first feature film. Iranian director Asghar Farhadi's About Elly took the Silver Bear for best direction.

16/02/2009