Curtain closes on Pyongyang international film festival

SEOUL, Sept. 26 (Yonhap) -- The curtain came down on North Korea's international
film festival on Friday, the North's media outlet said, with a Chinese war drama
with a strong South Korean connection honored as the best film.

"Assembly" by Feng Xiaogang won awards for the best film, best directing and best
technical achievement for a full-length film in the 11th Pyongyang International
Film Festival, said the Korean Central News Agency.
The US$10 million Chinese epic, which tells the story of a fallen soldier of the
1948 Chinese civil war fought between the communists and the nationalists, was
the opener of South Korea's Pusan International Film Festival in 2007. All the
battle scenes were created by a South Korean special effects team that had
previously worked on the 2004 Korean blockbuster "Taegukgi: The Brotherhood of
War."
The scenario award went to "Mainline," an Iranian film by Rakhshan Bani Etemad
that tells the story of growing drug use among Iranian youth, while the shooting
and fine art award was conferred on "Atonement," a World War II saga directed by
Britain's Joe Wright and based on Ian McEwan's best-selling novel of the same
name.
Bosnian actor Sasa Petrovic received the best actor award for his role in the
film "It's Hard to be Nice," while the award for the best actress went to Baran
Kowsari of Mainline, who is also the director's daughter.
North Korea's children's film "The Oriole's Song" received a composition award,
while another North Korean film, "The Kites Flying in the Sky," was one of many
winners of special screening awards, along with films from Germany, Russia,
Switzerland, China, France and Britain, it said.
The report did not elaborate on the details of the North Korean films.
The annual film festival opened on Sept. 17 for a 10-day run in Pyongyang.
Present at the closing ceremony were Yang Hyong-sop, vice-president of the
Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, Ro Tu-chol, vice-premier of the
Cabinet, Culture Minister Kang Nung-su, who is also chairman of the festival
organizing committee, and foreign delegates and diplomatic envoys, the report
said.