AlejandroAmenabar's The Sea Inside won theGolden Kinnaree for best picture as well as best actor for Javier Bardem's roleas a quadriplegic at the third Bangkok International Film Festival.

TheGolden Kinnaree for best director was shared by Park Chan Wook for Old Boy and Christophe Barratier for Les Choristes while Annette Bening (Being Julia) tied with Ana Geislerova (Zelary) for the best actress prize.

Atotal of 11 films competed for the Golden Kinnaree awards which were presidedby a jury panel of six, including Bruce Beresford, Juliana Margulies, ThomasPollock, Govind Nihalani Raffaella De Laurentiis and Thai director NonzeeNimibutr.

Thebest ASEAN film award, judged by a FIPRESCI jury, went to Malaysian filmmakerJames Lee's The Beautiful Washing Machine.The low-budget DV beat 14 other ASEAN entries including Puteri Gunung Ledang, Malaysia's most expensive film.

TheGolden Kinnaree Lifetime Achievement Award was given to the late VichitKounavudhi who was regarded as a master of Thai motion picture industry for hisgenius in directing, screenwriting and editing.

DirectorJoel Schumacher was also on hand to receive the Career Achievement Award at theawards gala, held on Jan 21 at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre.

Theglittering event was in sharp contrast to the Jan 13 opening ceremony which wastoned down by organisers Tourism Authority of Thailand as a fund-raising eventfor the tsunami relief.

SananjitBangsapan's Sum Meu Peun (Hit Man File)closed the film festival on Jan 23.