Iranian film wins at Berlin film festival

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi's "Nader and Simin, A Separation," a drama that centers on a disintegrating marriage, won the top Golden Bear honor and swept the acting awards at the Berlin film festival on Saturday.

A jury led by actress Isabella Rossellini handed the ensemble cast of the film, led by Peyman Moadi and Leila Hatami, both the best actor and the best actress awards.

"I never would have thought that I would win this prize," Farhadi said. He added that it offers "a very good opportunity to think of the people of my country - the country I grew up in, the country where I learned my stories - a great people."

The film highlights a clash between traditional and modern ways of living and thinking. It chronicles the events that follow a wife's unsuccessful petition for a divorce, which she seeks when her husband refuses to leave Iran with her and her daughter. He worries about leaving behind his father, who suffers from Alzheimer's.

The wife then moves out and the man hires a pregnant, pious young woman who agrees to take care of his father, without telling her husband. One afternoon, a blazing argument is followed by the woman suffering a miscarriage - setting in motion a chain of events that shakes the family.

Farhadi was honored as best director in Berlin two years ago for his previous movie, "About Elly."

On Saturday, this year's best director honor went to Germany's Ulrich Koehler for "Sleeping Sickness," a film about an aid worker long based in Africa and his increasingly alienated wife.

Hungarian director Bela Tarr's starkly minimalist "The Turin Horse," the story of a farmer and his horse, won a runner-up Silver Bear.

Argentine-born first-time director Paula Markovitch's "The Prize," an autobiographical film set in Argentina during the military dictatorship of the 1970s, won two prizes for outstanding artistic achievement.

They went to Wojciech Staron for his camerawork and Barbara Enriquez for the production design.

The best script award went to "The Forgiveness of Blood," a drama set in Albania from American director Joshua Marston.

The festival's Alfred Bauer prize for innovation went to German director Andres Veiel's "If not us, who," a movie about the early years of some of the far-left Red Army Faction's leading figures.