The fourth edition of Norway's Bergen International Film Festival, which wrapped on Wednesday (Oct 22), saw Asian cinema secure the top honours.

Yang Li's Chinese Blind Shaft took the main prize, while Sangsoo Im's South Korean A Good Lawyer's Wife won the critics' award. Sixteen films screened in competition.

The main prize comes with $10,700 (NOK75,000) from the Norwegian Film Institute to the distributor who offers to pick the film up for local release.

Special mentions were given to Iain Dilthey's German Das Verlangen and Jan Jakub Kolski's Polish Pornografia, while Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol.1 predictably was chosen as the audience favourite.

Main sponsor Canal+ chose the local short Fear Less by Therese Jacobsen as best short.

The film festival originally grew out of the cultural events in and around Bergen, when it was European City Of Culture in 2000 - but thanks to festival director and head programmer Tor Fosse, BIFF has now grown into one of the major film events in the country.

This year's festival not only set a record in terms of the number of films screened with 110 features and 150 shorts, it also beat last year's admissions by some 5,000 tickets - taking 30,556 admissions.

It was the first time the film event was part of the city's Art Festival, which meant that cinema was integrated with exhibitions, installations, concerts and performances.

The highlight for the growing local film community was the premiere of local director Gunnar Hall Jensen's autobiographical documentary, Gunnar Goes Comfortable, which premiered Sunday night.

It received fair to highly favourable reviews in both local and national media. The film, which follows Jensen on a journey to find a way to live with himself, will have its international premiere at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam (Nov.20-30).