Lone Scherfig's Danishhit Italian For Beginners andRakhshan Bani-Etemad's Under The Skin Of The City tied for the top prize at the 2002 Women In CinemaFilm Festival in Seattle on Thursday night.

Determined by audience vote,the best film runner-up was Rose Troche's The Safety Of Objects. Best documentary was Maia Wechsler's SistersIn Resistance, followed byrunners-up Marielle Nitoslawska's Bad Girl and Alix Lambert's The Mark Of Cain.

Bestshort film was Harriette Yahr'sBaker's Men followed byJoan Stein's One Day Crossingand Faye Dunaway's The Yellow Bird.

The eight-day festival,which was closed by Lucrecia Martel's award-winning Argentinian film LaCienaga, named its awards the LenaSharpe awards after the film-maker Sharpe who died in a plane crash in 1993.She had been the managing director and a programmer for the International Festivalof Films by Women Directors, established in Seattle in 1987, a precursor to theWomen in Cinema Film Festival.