Berlin Film Festival ends with narrow field vying for top prizes

The main competition at the 61st annual Berlin Film Festival has drawn to a close with a narrow field of candidates emerging as contenders for the top awards, which will be handed out at a Hollywood-style gala ceremony on Saturday, DPA reported.

Leading the race for the festival's coveted Golden Bear for best picture is Iranian director Asghar Farhadi's Jodaeiye Nader az Simin (Nader And Simin, A Separation) - a film about a couple whose lives begin to spin out of control after a court rejects their divorce.

Veteran Hungarian director Bela Tarr's solemn black-and-white A Torinoi Lo (The Horse of Turin) also stands a good chance of securing one of the awards.

Tarr's two-and-half-hour story about an ageing farmer and his dutiful grown-up daughter, who live in a small derelict house in the middle of a cheerless countryside, divided festival-goers - mesmerizing some, while others dismissed it as repetitive.

Also in the running is US director Joshua Marston's The Forgiveness of Blood, which tells the story of a teenager whose life is turned upside down after his family becomes embroiled in Albania's centuries-old blood feuds.

The film comes seven years after Marston's critically acclaimed directorial debut in Maria Full Of Grace, a Spanish-language film set in Columbia.

The screening of the three movies came in the second half of the festival and helped fire up what at the start was shaping up to be a rather uninspiring Berlinale - a festival that is one of the world's A-list film showcases.

But the decisions of film festival juries are notoriously difficult to predict. A total of 16 films are in the running for the top prizes, which will be awarded by a jury headed by Italian-born actress Isabella Rossellini.

One movie that also won praise from Berlinale festival-goers was US director JC Chandor's Margin Call, a movie about the financial firestorm that swept the global economy in 2008.

Starring Kevin Spacey, Zachary Quinto and Demi Moore, Margin Call takes its audience on a roller coaster ride over a frantic 24-hour period as a group of bankers battle to save their investment house from collapse.

Also winning some fans at the festival was US director Miranda July's quirky movie The Future about the new pressures on a couple's relationship after they adopt a sick cat.

In addition, the Shakespearean tragedy Coriolanus - the directing debut of British actor Ralph Fiennes - was well received by many movie critics.

Another movie that emerged as a serious contender was German director Andres Veiel's Wer Wenn Nicht Wir (If Not Us, Who), which traced the origins of violent left-wing politics in Germany during the 1960s.

Turkish director Seyfi Teoman's Bizim Buyuk Caresizligimiz (Our Grand Despair) may also snatch an award. The film shows how the peaceful co-existence of two men in their 30s is thrown off course when they allow a friend's sister to move in with them.