Ursula Meier's Home was the big winner at this year's ceremony for the Swiss Film Prizes which were presented for the first time in a gala event in Lucerne on Saturday evening (March 7).

Meier's film, which had its world premiere at last year's Cannes Film Festival and is represented internationally by Memento Films International, picked up the QUARTZ trophies in its three nominated categories: for Best Film, Best Screenplay (to Meier and co-screenwriter Antoine Jaccoud) and Best Emerging Actor - to 11-year-old Kacey Mottet Klein in his screen acting debut.

However, the evening's other favourite, Christoph Schaub's episodic film Happy New Year, which had garnered four nominations, left the ceremony without picking up any of the coveted prizes.

The QUARTZ for Best Documentary Film went to Fanny Bräuning's No More Smoke Signals, which had already won the Prix de Soleure at the Solothurn Film Days in January, while the honours for best acting were taken by Dominique Jann for his role in Dominique de Rivaz's Luftbusiness and Celine Bolomey for her performance in Vincent Pluss's De Bruit Dans La Tete.

In addition, the prize for Best Short Film went to Lorenz Merz's Un Dia Y Nada and for Best Animation Film to Polish-born Jadwiga Kowalska's Tot Ou Tard, and the newly created prize category of Best Film Score was won by Marcel Vaid for his music composed for Ayten Mutlu Saray's Zara.

The jury, headed by filmmaker Silvio Soldini and including Bond 'bad guy' Anatole Taubman and veteran producer Ruth Waldburger, also awarded a Special Jury Prize to Danilo Catti for his artistic and political commitment in the documentary Giu Le Mani about the protests against Swiss Federal Railways' planned privatisation measures in 2008.

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