Vanessa Jopp's Forget America, produced by Herbert Rimbach's Avista Film, and Jobst Oetzmann's Die Einsamkeit Der Krokodile, from Constantin subsidiary Olga Film, shared the top $242,000 (DM500,000) Producers Prize at this year's Bavarian Film Awards.

However, Oliver Hirschbiegel's psychological thriller Das Experiment, which is being released by Senator Film on March 8 in Germany, snared no less than three prizes - for direction, cinematography (Rainer Klausmann) and screenplay (Mario Giordano, Christoph Darnstaedt and Don Bohlinger). Esther Gronenborn received the newcomer director award for alaska.de.

The Bavarian best actress award went to Hannelore Elsner for her bravura performance in Oskar Roehler's No Place To Go (Die Unberuehrbare), which also won her a German Film Award in Gold last June. Benno Fuermann took the best actor award for his role in Martin Eigler's feature debut Freunde.

Newcomer acting awards went to Fritzi Haberlandt for her performance in Rainer Kaufmann's Ingrid Noll adaptation Cool Is The Autumn Breeze (Kalt Ist Der Abendhauch), while Robert Stadtlober and Tom Schilling split the best newcomer actor award for their roles in Hans-Christian Schmid's coming-of-age tale Crazy.

In addition, the collection agency VGF awarded its $48,350 (DM100,000) Producers Prize to Mischa Hofmann and Philip Voges of Hofman & Voges Entertainment for box office hit Erkan Und Stefan. The Honorary Bavarian Award went to veteran actor Mario Adorf known to international audiences through his roles in such films as The Lost Honour Of Katharina Blum and The Tin Drum.