Asian cinema conquers Berlin as fest wraps up

(AFP)
Updated: 2007-02-19 10:16

Chinese director Wang Quan'an and his lead actress Nan Yu hold up their trophy -- the Golden Bear Prize -- for their film 'Tuya's Marriage' during the closing press conference of the 57th Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin, 17 February.(AFP/John MacDougall)

BERLIN (AFP) - The 57th Berlin Film Festival has wrapped up after awarding a Chinese drama its Golden Bear prize for best picture, capping a bumper year for Asian cinema at the event.

"Tuya's Marriage" (Tuya De Hunshi) is an unconventional love story about a herdswoman and her two husbands set against the rural exodus in contemporary China.

Director Wang Quan'an, 41, described the award the perfect Lunar New Year's present.

"When I started making films, my teacher said film should show people's dreams," he said Sunday. "This film made my dreams come true."

Set on the Inner Mongolian steppe, it is the tale of a woman who grudgingly divorces her disabled husband to find another who can support the family.

Her many suitors however have to reckon with her enduring love for him until she settles on a kindly neighbour whose wife has left him.

"When the two rest their foreheads against each other it is as if they were sharing an intimate kiss like you have never seen before on screen," the film critic for Berlin's daily Tagesspiegel, Jan-Schulz-Ojala, wrote Sunday.

"Tuya's Marriage" had been a firm favourite with critics at the politically conscious festival.

Wang said he had wanted to give audiences a look at a rural way of life that is giving way to the forces of unbridled capitalism.

"I think it gives us time to reflect on what we are losing due to economic expansion. We will never get it back," he said.

It was the first Berlinale win for China since 1993 when "The Woman From the Lake of Scented Souls" by Xie Fei tied with Ang Lee's "The Wedding Banquet," and came just months after Chinese director Jia Zhangke's "Still Life" won the Golden Lion for best film in Venice.

"Tuya's Marriage" was one of 22 competition entries in a strong year for Asian pictures at the Berlinale.

South Korean star director Park Chan-Wook picked up the Alfred Bauer Prize for work of particular innovation for a quirky romance set in a mental hospital called "I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK."

Indian director Rajnesh Domalpalli accepted the first feature film prize for "Vanaja" about the daughter of a poor fisherman yearning to escape the restrictions of the strict caste system.

And audiences flocked to see 32-year-old director Li Yu's "Lost in Beijing" (Ping Guo), a grim look at two married couples where love and even children have their price that screened in its uncensored form in Berlin.

Only one Berlinale award went to a Hollywood production.

The ensemble cast of Robert De Niro's "The Good Shepherd," which featured Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Alec Baldwin and William Hurt in a drama about the rise of the CIA, won the Silver Bear for outstanding artistic contribution.

Germany's Nina Hoss was named best actress for her understated performance in "Yella," becoming the third homegrown talent in three years to win the prize.

Hoss, 31, plays an east German woman fleeing unemployment and a failed marriage for a new life in the West in the dark film by director Christian Petzold.

"I was sure it was going to go to Marianne Faithfull," said a stunned Hoss, paying tribute to the British pop icon who put in a star turn as an unlikely sex worker in "Irina Palm."

Argentina's Julio Chavez, 50, won for best actor for his role in "The Other" as a man fleeing his responsibilities when his father falls ill and his wife becomes pregnant. The film, which critics had panned, also won the Jury's Grand Prize.

The Silver Bear for best director went to US-born Israeli filmmaker Joseph Cedar for his anti-war film "Beaufort" on the fraught withdrawal of Israel's last military unit from Lebanon in 2000.

"It's about fear, my own fear," said Cedar, 38, who was stationed in southern Lebanon during his military service.

"I want to wish us all that our leaders be fearful of war and find the courage to end it."

Hollywood screenwriter and director Paul Schrader led the jury which included actors Gael Garcia Bernal and Willem Dafoe, Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass, Hong Kong producer Nansun Shi, Danish film editor Molly Malene Stensgaard and veteran German actor Mario Adorf.

The 11-day Berlinale ranks along with Cannes and Venice among the top European film festivals.