European cultural channel ARTE and the European Film Academy have named French filmmaker Nicolas Philibert's Etre Et Avoir as the winner of this year's European Documentary Award - Prix ARTE which will be officially presented at the European Film Awards gala in Rome's Teatro dell'Opera on December 7.

Philibert's film was unveiled as this year's winner at a special screening of Etre Et Avoir in Berlin's Cinema Paris hosted by the French Embassy, the Bureau du Cinema de Institut Francais and the film's German distributor Ventura-Film on Wednesday evening (Nov 27).

Etre Et Avoir has become one of the most successful French documentaries of all time with over 1.3m admissions and will be released in Germany by Ventura-Film on January 16, 2003.