Siddiq Barmak's Afghanistan set Opium War has won The Golden Marco Aurelio Critics' award for Best Film, while Giacomo Battiato's Resolution 819 earned the festival's Golden Marco Aurelio Audience award for Best Film.

Both of these prizes are accompanied by $96,400 (Euros 75,000) in prize money from BNL - Gruppo BNP Paribas.

A world premiere in Rome, Opium War is an Afghanistan-Japan-South Korea-and France co-production about two American pilots whose plane crashes in the Afghan desert.

The critic's award was assigned by a jury composed of critics Edoardo Bruno, Michel Ciment, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Emanuel Levy and Roman Gutek.

Resolution 819 , also a Rome world premiere, is a French-Polish-Italian co-production about a volunteer French police officer that heads out to Srebrenica to research evidence of genocide. Receiving his award, Battiato said, 'Part of this money will go to the refugees, and another part will go into the next film.'

Rome 's audience prize is voted on by regular cinemagoers via a newly installed electronic voting procedure. The system was created by the company IS S.p.A. in conjunction with Rome's Cinema Foundation. The festival said 64% of film goers participated in the voting.

In other prizes, the critic's jury also assigned The Silver Marco Aurelio award for best actress to Donatella Finocchiaro for her role in Edoardo Winspeare's Galantuomini while the Silver Marco Aurelio Critics' award for best actor was given to Bohdan Stupka for his performance in Krzysztof Zanussi's With a Warm Heart (Serce na dloni).

The critics' jury also assigned two special mentions to Joao Botelho's Northern Land (A Corte do Norte) and to Francois Dupeyron's With a Little Help from Myself (Aide Toi, le Ciel t'aidera).

The Cult Prize for best documentary was awarded to Gyumri by Jana Sevcikova in the L'Altro Cinema/Extra section. This winner was selected from 12 documentaries having their European or International premier in Rome.

Golden Marco Aurelio career honors were bestowed on Italian icon Gina Lollobrigida and earlier in the festival to Al Pacino.

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