BENTON WINS BERLIN AWARD FOR ‘PLACES’

Robert Benton has won the Berlin Film Festival’s best directing award for his extraordinary, deeply American “Places in the Heart.”

The Golden Bear for best feature was split between the exceptional British film “Wetherby” and East Germany’s “The Woman and the Stranger.” Written and directed by British playwright/director David Hare, “Wetherby” stars Vanessa Redgrave. “The Woman and the Stranger,” written and directed by Rainer Simon, is a tender love triangle set in the last days of World War I.

The Special Jury Prize, a Silver Bear, went to the Hungarian “Flowers of Reverie” by Laszlo Lugossy, a film set in the mid-1800s but with clear implications for present-day Hungary.

Spanish actor/director Fernando Fernan Gomez, Spain’s John Gielgud, who is known for his work in many films, including “Spirit of the Beehive,” won best-actor honors in a comedy about a retired professor who chooses to become a slave in present-day Madrid.

Australia’s Jo Kennedy was voted best actress for her performance as a young heroin addict in Ian Pringle’s “Wrong World.” (Kennedy was last seen as a struggling and original young rock singer in Gillian Armstrong’s “Starstruck.”)

“The Descendant of the Snow Leopard” by Tolomusch Okejew, a vivid dramatization of a Kirghiz folk legend, received a Silver Bear for special achievement in cinematography and art direction.

A new category was created when a Silver Bear for “exceptional imagination” was awarded to the Swedish “Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter,” from the classic children’s book by Astrid Lindgren and directed by Tage Danielsson.

Three special-mention awards were given to the Turkish film “Pehlivan” by Zeki Okten, to Italy’s Damiano Damiani for “The Pizza Connection” and to France’s Marguerite Duras for her story and screenplay of “Les Enfants.”

In the short-film category, the Golden Bear went to “From the Reports of Security Guards and Patrol Services--Part 1,” a terrifying work by Helke Sander, based on a true incident about a desperate young mother who, with her two little children, climbed to the top of a construction crane to dramatize her need for an affordable apartment in West Berlin.

The exquisite animated film “Paradise” (nominated for an Oscar this year) by Ishu Patel, from the Canadian Film Board, won a Silver Bear.

The festival’s rules prohibit an award in more than one category to any one film, which has the intended effect of spreading the prizes but results in odd lapses when formidable performances such as Redgrave’s in “Wetherby,” John Malkovich’s in “Places in the Heart” or the trio from “The Woman and the Stranger” cannot be cited because their films have won in another category.