Entertainment

Film director Lu Chuan won the Golden Shell at Donostia International Film Festival for City of Life and Death, as the jury informed in the press conference. The film in set in 1937. Japanese troops have entered China''s temporary capital, where their cruel occupation will be known as "The Rape of Nanjing". Shot in wide lens black-and-white, the film alternates Japanese and Chinese points of view to brush a compelling and impressionist portrait of the day-to-day living conditions in the devastated city and recount the minute ethical dilemmas demanded by surviving in wartime.

City of Life and Death was also awarded with the Jury Prize for best Cinematography.

The Special Jury Prize went to Le Refuge, by François Ozon. In the film we find Mousse and Louis, young, beautiful, rich and in love. But drugs have invaded their lives. One day they overdose, and Louis dies. Mousse survives, but soon learns she''s pregnant. Feeling lost, Mousse runs away to a house far from Paris. Several months later, Louis'' brother joins her in her refuge.

Spanish actress Lola Dueñas won the Silver Shell for Best Actress for her role in Yo También, a film which tells the story of Daniel, a young 34-year-old from Seville who becomes the first European man with Down syndrome to have earned a university diploma. He starts his working life with the public administration where he meets Laura, a workmate with no apparent disability. And he falls in love with her. Spanish actor Pablo Pineda becomes the first man with Down syndrome to have won the Silver Shell for Best Actor for his role in the film.

The Silver Shell for Best Director went to Javier Rebollo for La Mujer sin piano (Spain-France). La mujer sin piano portrays a typical early 21st century housewife in Madrid. The heroine is a married woman who likes nothing better than the great personal satisfaction of seeing a steaming dish served on the dinner table with admirable punctuality. The movie follows 24 hours in her domestic, working and sexual life, a life from which she decides to escape one night, narrating the events falling within the parenthesis of her evasion. Some may say that this is a film on a housewife''s alienation and slavery, but in fact it''s the tale of a woman, on the threshold of menopause, with neither friends nor social life, who has dedicated her entire life to the family, who doesn''t consider herself to be pretty, who doesn''t like her hair, who allows herself to be carried along on the flow of a single night.

The FIPRESCI Award, given by International Film Critics , was for the Spanish film Los condenados, by Isaki Lacuesta. The Uruguayan film Gigante by Adrian Biniez got the Horizontes Award while the Argentinian film Francia by Adrian got the special mention.

Gaztea Youth Award went for The Children of Diyarbakir, by director Miraz Bezar. The film is set in the Turkish Kurdistan in the 1990s. On a night in May, on an empty road near Diyarbakir, the lives of ten year old Gülistan and her brother Firat suffer an abrupt change: their father, a political journalist, and their mother are killed by state security forces before their very eyes. Having lost all other relatives during the civil war, Gülistan and Firat are forced to survive on their own.

The jury, formed by the Korean director Bong Joon-ho, the Mexican actor Daniel Gimenez Cacho, the Spanish actress Pilar Lopez de Ayala, British film director John Madden, the Iraian director Samira Makhmalbaf and the Portuguese actress Leonor Silveira, decided to give City of light and death the Best Cinematography Award and the Best Screenplay Award to Andrew Bovell, melissa Reeves, Patricia Cornelius and Christos Tsiolkas for Blessed (Australia).

Closing Gala

The director Rodrigo Garcia and the actors Naomi Watts, Kerry Washington and Jimmy Smits will present the film Mother &' || 'amp; Child at the 57th San Sebastian Festival closing gala, to take place today at 21:00 in the Kursaal.

The closing gala can be seen on TV2 at 22:30; on ETB 1 live at 21:00, and at www.sansebastianfestival.com from 22:00 on the sansebastianfestivalTV channel.

As usual, the Anoeta Velodrome will once again host the double closing session, starting at 18:30 with the movie bringing the Zabaltegi-Pearls section to a close, Johnnie To''s Vengeance,and featuring a broadcast of the closing gala at the Kursaal on the giant Velodrome screen, followed by Mother &' || 'amp; Child at 22:30. All of the award-winners and the team of Mother &' || 'amp; Child will also make an appearance on the Velodrome stage. A few tickets can still be purchased for the Kursaal and Antonio Elorza Velodrome closing events.