Banned Chinese film wins at Tribeca festival

The fourth annual Tribeca Film Festival ended on a political note when the top feature film prize went to "Stolen Life," a Chinese drama that its director said was banned in her native country.

"This is truly important for us in the sense that the film is still banned" in China, director Li Shaohong said in accepting the Founders Award from actor Robert De Niro, who co-conceived the burgeoning festival in 2002 as a boost for downtown Manhattan following the Sept. 11 attacks.

Speaking through an interpreter, Li said she hoped the award would help get the movie, a story of love, loss and deception in the life of a college student, "green-lighted so that my people in China can watch this film soon. "

Other top awards at the ceremony, which featured presenters Tim Robbins, Denis Leary, Eddie Izzard and Diane von Furstenberg, included best actor for Cees Geel for the Dutch film "Simon," and best actress for "Desperate Housewives" star Felicity Huffman for "Transamerica," in which she plays a pre-operative transsexual woman.

Huffman did not attend but her award was accepted by her husband, the film's executive producer and actor William H. Macy. "She had some housewife responsibilities," he joked. "Mine, not ABC's."

Macy said Huffman did extensive research for her role and "felt the weight of responsibility to get it right." The transsexuals she met were "the bravest people she's ever known."

Geel was also not on hand, but "Simon" director Eddy Terstall noted that, like De Niro in "Raging Bull," the actor had gained and lost weight to play the role in the film about male friendship, gay marriage, illness and other timely issues, and would be delighted at winning the prize from the festival co-founded by De Niro.

Best documentary feature went to "El Perro Negro: Stories from the Spanish Civil War," a Netherlands/Hungary production culled from the home movies of a family of Catalan industrialists from the late 1920s onward. The award for best new documentary filmmaker was won by Jeff Zimblast and Matt Mochary, directors of "Favela Rising," a story about overcoming the odds in the slums of Rio de Janeiro.

The award for best new narrative (non-documentary) filmmaker was won by Alicia Scherson for "Play," a film told in pop-visual style about a couple who yearn to fall in love but can't seem to meet up.

Prizes for best documentary exploring a New York subject and best feature filmed in New York went to "Rikers High" and "Red Doors," respectively. The audience award went to the documentary "Street Fight," about machine politics during the 2002 Newark, New Jersey, mayoral election.

The festival included more than 250 films from 45 countries on six continents. Judges included Whoopi Goldberg, von Furstenberg, writer Tom Wolfe, actress Teri Hatcher and pop star Sheryl Crow.

- REUTERS