Afghanistan director Siddiq Barmak's Opium War and Italy's Giacomo Battiato's Resolution 819, about war crimes in Bosnia, won top prizes Friday at the International Rome Film Festival.
The Golden Marc'Aurelio Critics Award for Best Film was bestowed to Opium War, in which a pair of US military helicopter pilots confront the harsh realities of life in Afghanistan after their aircraft is shot down, dpa reported.
The festival's Golden Marc'Aurelio Audience Award for Best Film, for which visitors selected their favourite among this year's 20 films in competition, went to Battiato's thriller set within the grim context of Balkan "ethnic cleansing."
Italian Donatella Finocchiaro won the Silver Marc'Aurelio Critics Award for Best Actress for her role as a female mafia boss in Galantuomi, while Ukrainian Bohdan Stupka collected the Best Actor Award for A Warm Heart in which he plays a corrupt Polish oligarch who discovers he is terminally ill.