Poland's Era New Horizons Film Festival in Wroclaw has given its Grand Prix to Rain Of The Children.

New Zealand director Vincent Ward's film is described as 'an intimate docufiction,' telling the story of the film-maker's own interest in the turbulent life story of an old Maori woman. Other films in the competition included My Winnipeg, Delta and Jesus Christ Saviour.

Tomasz Wolski's The Goldfish took the international jury's award for best film in the New Polish Films Competition.

The festival ran July 17-27 showing 247 features and 354 shorts from more than 50 countries. Retrospectives honoured Theo Angelopoulos, Terence Davis, Andrzej Zulawski and focuses on New Zealand and Brazil.

Guests at Era New Horizons included Roger Donaldson, Vincent Ward, Theo Angelopoulos, Terence Davies, Peter Geyer, Jerzy Skolimowski, Krzysztof Zanussi, and Robert Glinski.

This year's eighth edition sold 127,000 tickets. The 2009 festival will run July 23-Aug 2.

Topics