In A Better World scoops top prize at Birds Eye View Festival

Susanne Bier’s In A Better World has been named Best Feature at the Birds Eye View Film Festival, which closed tonight in London (March 17).

The Danish film, which won both the foreign language Oscar and Golden Globe earlier this year, was chosen by a panel made up of Screen’s chief film critic Mark Adams, actress Kerry Fox and Artifical Eye MD Louisa Dent.

Palestinian director Suha Arraf picked up the Best Documentary Award for her feature Women Of Hamas, which follows Palestinian women as they protest against Gaza’s hard line ruling party Hamas.

Canadian writer/director Adriana Maggs’s small town drama Grown Up Star was named the Best Debut Feature, whilst Marianne Elliott’s Alice was named the Women in Film and Television Best UK Short.

The Best International Short award went to Lisa James-Larssen for Little Children, Big Words and the Best Short Animation award was handed out jointly to Niki Lindroth von Bahr for Tord and Tord and Joanna Lurie for The Silence Beneath The Bark.

The winners were announced at an awards ceremony hosted by British actress Hayley Attwell, directors Lucy Walker and Joanna Hogg and comedian Lucy Porter at the BFI Southbank in London tonight. It was followed by a special gala screening of Lena Dunham’s SWSW winning Tiny Furniture.

Now in its seventh edition, this year’s festival has attracted a record 10,000 audiences members.

Festival director Rachel Millward said she was “delighted that the festival has been such a resounding success this year, with overwhelming response from audiences proving the wealth of talent that women filmmakers bring to our screens.”