Afghan-French co-production Earth And Ashes (pictured),directed by Atiq Rahimi, and The Missingfrom Taiwan's Lee Kang-sheng were jointly awarded best film at the sixthedition of Cinefan (July 16-25) which wrapped in Delhi on Sunday night.

Earth And Ashes, amoving portrayal of the devastating impact of war on an old man and hisgrandson, also won the best actor award for non-professional actor Abdul Ghani.Best actress was awarded to Katherine Luna for her role in Woman Of Breakwater directed by the Philippines' Mario O'Hara.

The Netpac jury gave its award to Listener's Choice, directed by Syria's Abdullatif Abdulhamid, whilethe audience award went to Sandip Ray's GangstersOf Bombay.

The small but rapidly expanding festival has a duel functionin introducing Indian audiences to cinema from the rest of Asia and alsoshowcasing non-mainstream Indian film. It recently merged with private artsorganisation Osian's and is now the only film festival to take place in theIndian capital since the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) moved toGoa.

Around 90 films screened at the 10-day event including afocus on Arab cinema, a selection of Asian films backed by the Hubert Bals Fundand tributes to Iran's Makhmalbaf family and Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai.The seven-member competition jury included the director of the Pusan filmfestival, Kim Dong-ho, and Directors' Fortnight artistic director Olivier Pere.

The festival is currently free to the public but thisarrangement may have to change as there were angry scenes at some screeningswhen hordes of hopeful cinema-goers were turned away from packed theatres."We've been overwhelmed by the response," says festival directorAruna Vasudev. "If we don't have the infrastructure in place, it's onlybecause we didn't expect the demand."

Marking a first for India, the festival featured a TalentCampus in association with the Berlinale. Around 50 young Indian filmmakerswere tutored by filmmakers such as Mohsen Makhmalbaf, India's Aparna Sen andHong Kong-based DoP Christopher Doyle. A one-day conference was also held withthe European Coordination of Film Festivals to discuss the promotion of Indianfilms in Europe and vice versa.