KoreanKim Tae-yong's second film Family Ties (Gajokeui Tansaeng) won the Golden Alexander for best film at the 47thThessaloniki International Film Festival and the $48,000 (37,000 Euros) cashprize.

Thefilm was chosen from 14 first or second film titles by a seven-strong jury, ledby US independent producer Christine Vachon and featuring among its membersBrazilian director Katia Lund, Chinese actress Xu Jinglei, French film guruPiere Rissient and Spanish film critic Diego Galan.

Theyawarded the Special JuryPrize (Silver Alexander) and $29,000 (Euros 22,000) to the Iranian production AsreJomeh (On a Friday Afternoon) by debutantdirector Mona Zandi Haghighi.

Anotherdebutant, Slawomir Fabicki, from Poland took the Best Director award, for Zodzyscu(Retrieval).

ThePolish film also picked up Best Actor award forAntoni Pawlicki while theBest Actress prize was awarded to Moon So-ri, Goh Doon-shim, Kong Hyo-jin and Kim Hae-ok, the four leading actresses of Family Ties.

FamilyTies emerged as the great winner of the competition as italso obtained the Best Screenplay award. Sharing the screenplay award was SuelyIn The Sky (O Ceu de Suely) by Karim Ainouz, theBrazilian film co-produced by Walter Salles who was also present inThessaloniki for a special presentation of his films.

SuelyIn The Sky was also chosen as the best film of the competitionby the Fipresci jury.

The Greek production Eduart by Angeliki Antoniou receivedthe Fipresci nod as best Greek film among the 18 titles presented in the GreekFilms 2006 section.

WimWenders, Chen Kaige, Juliette Lewis, Lily Taylor, Valeria Golino, SandrineBonnaire, handed out the awards.

Othercash awards went to:

RomeRather Than You (Algeria) by Tariq Teguia $19,500 (Euros15,000) offered by the Ministry for Macedonia-Thrace.

ElViolin (Mexico) by Francisco Vargas $19,500 (Euros 15,000) offeredby the Greek Parliament.

Grbavica(Bosnia) by Jasmila Zbanic $8,000 (Euros 6,000) offeredby the General Secretariat for Gender Equality.

LandOf Nod (Greece) by Evangelos Yiovannis $19,500 (Euros 15,000)offered by the Greek Film Centre.