A controversial film about the American pornographer Larry Flynt yesterday won the coveted Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival. Milos Forman's The People vs. Larry Flynt stars Woody Harrelson as the publisher of Husller who became an unlikely champion of free speech when he won a Supreme Court case against the Christian leader, the Rev Jerry Falwell.
The film has been criticised in the US for glorifying a man who made his fortune by producing degrading images of women.
The runner up in Berlin was the Taiwanese film He Liu (The River), about a dysfunctional family in a Taipei high rise apartment building.
Juliette Binoche was named Best Actress for her role as a wartime nurse in Anthony Minghella's The English Patient.
Best Actor was Leonardo Di Caprio as Romeo in Baz Luhrmann's gangland update of Romeo and Juliet.