Theron wins Berlin top actress prize for Monster

6.00pm

Charlize Theron has added the Berlin Film Festival's best actress award to her growing collection of prizes for her performance as a homeless prostitute serial killer in the US independent film Monster.

Theron has already won a Golden Globe as well as a best actress nomination for the February 29 Academy Awards for her stirring portrayal of Florida streetwalker Aileen Wuornos, who was executed in 2002 for the murder of seven men.

South Africa-born Theron was awarded the prestigious Silver Bear best actress award at the conclusion of the Berlinale while a German film, Head-On (Gegen die Wand) by German-Turkish director Fatih Akin, won the Golden Bear prize for best film.

Theron's Silver Bear certainly won't hurt her Academy Award chances. Last year Nicole Kidman first shared the Silver Bear award with Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore for The Hours. Kidman then went on to win the best actress Oscar.

The Berlinale, ranked just behind Cannes and alongside Venice among the world's leading film festivals, also awarded a best actor Silver Bear to Uruguay's Daniel Hendler for the low-budget Argentine film Lost Embrace (El Abrazo Partido).

Set against the backdrop of Argentina's economic crisis, Hendler plays a well-educated but idle Jewish architect trying to get a Polish passport to escape the South American nation and go to Europe, from where his grandparents fled the Holocaust.

Struggling to pick a single actress in a field crowded with strong women, the jury also took the unusual step of awarding a second Silver Bear best actress prize to Catalina Sandino Moreno for her role in the US-Colombian film Maria Full of Grace.

The Berlin jury also awarded a Silver Bear best director award to Korean Kim Ki-Duk for his film Samaritan Girl.

Head-On, only the seventh German film to win best film in the 54-year history of the Berlin festival, tells the turbulent story of Sibel, a young German woman of Turkish origin who flees her strict Muslim home by convincing an older, depressed German-born Turk to marry her.

"I love this film," jury president and US actress Frances McDormand said. "It said in a wonderful way so many things that a lot of the other films said as well. Head-On told them in a most powerful and most modern way."

It was the first time since 1986 that a German production won the top prize, reflecting a rejuvenated home film industry. German films won prizes at the last Academy Awards, in Venice, European film prizes and bigger slices of the home box office.

"It was quite an edgy festival," Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick said. "There wasn't a lot of mainstream stuff. The film that won is about Turks in Germany. If that's not about integration, I don't know what is. I'm happy for them."

Monster, a low-budget film directed by Patty Jenkins, drew rave reviews from international critics and warm applause from some 1800 journalists at its international debut in Berlin. It was widely tipped to be among the festival's big winners.

Theron added 13kg, sunburned her face and hideously rearranged her teeth.

The festival also had plenty of glamour with stars including Renee Zellweger, Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, Robin Williams, Jude Law, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy and Claudia Schiffer traipsing over the frosty red carpets.

BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL TOP AWARDS

GOLDEN BEAR FOR BEST FILM

Head-On (Gegen die Wand), Germany

Directed by Fatih Akin


SILVER BEAR FOR BEST ACTOR
Daniel Hendler

in Lost Embrace (El Abrazo Partido), Argentina

Directed by Daniel Burman


SILVER BEAR FOR BEST ACTRESS (two winners)

Charlize Theron

in Monster, United States

Directed by Patty Jenkins


and

Catalina Sandino Moreno

in Maria Full of Grace

(Maria, Llena Eres De Gracia), US-Colombia

Directed by Joshua Marston


JURY GRAND PRIX SILVER BEAR

Lost Embrace by Daniel Burman


SILVER BEAR FOR BEST DIRECTOR

Kim Ki-Duk for Samaritan Girl (Samaria), South Korea


SILVER BEAR FOR OUTSTANDING ARTISTIC CONTRIBUTION

The entire ensemble of the film Day Break

(Om Jag Vander Mig Om), Sweden

Directed by Bjoern Runge


SILVER BEAR FOR BEST FILM MUSIC

Banda Osiris for the music in the film First Love

(Primo Amore), Italy

Directed by Matteo Garrone


BLUE ANGEL AWARD FOR BEST EUROPEAN FILM

Day Break


- REUTERS