Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel’s La Pivellina won the Grand Diagonale Prize for Best Austrian Feature Film at festival director Barbara Pichler’s second year heading up the annual national showcase of Austrian cinema in Graz.

The story of a two-year-old girl abandoned in a park who is taken in by a circus artist had its world premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar of the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and was awarded the Europa Cinemas Label. Handled internationally by Films Distribution, the film has been sold to 15 territories and shown at around 75 festivals.

The Diagonale’s awards ceremony on Saturday evening [March 21] also saw the Grand Diagonale Prize for Best Austrian Documentary Film going to Brigitte Weich and Karin Macher’s Hana, dul, sed…, while Huseyin Tabak’s documentary Kick Off about a group of homeless and drug addicts playing street football in the Homeless World Cup picked up the Youth Prize and Audience Award.

In addition, The White Ribbon cinematographer Christian Berger collected another trophy for his sideboard with the Austrian Association Of Cinematographers AAC Prize for his work on Michael Haneke’s film.

Meanwhile, the festival’s opening night on March 16 had seen the Grand Diagonale Prize for Acting in recognition of services to Austrian film culture being presented to veteran actor-director Klaus-Maria Brandauer.

This year’s Diagonale Prize for Acting for remarkable performances by an Austrian actor or actress in a film at the 2010 edition of the Diagonale went to Franziska Weisz and Andreas Lust for their roles in Benjamin Heisenberg’s The Robber.

A full list of the Diagonale’s award-winners can be found at the official website.

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