Piolo-John Lloyd movie 'Hele' wins Alfred Bauer Prize at Berlin Film Festival

MANILA, Philippines - Lav Diaz's eight-hour black-and-white historical drama "Hele Sa Hiwagang Hapis" (English title: "A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery) won the Alfred Bauer Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival on Saturday (Sunday morning, Philippine time).

The Alfred Bauer Prize is given to the film that that opens new perspectives.

"Hele Sa Hiwagang Hapis" stars Piolo Pascual and John Lloyd Cruz, with Alessandra de Rossi and Cherie Gil, and is produced by Paul Soriano.

Meanwhile, Fire at Sea," a documentary about the Italian island of Lampedusa — many migrants' first destination on risky journeys toward safety and a better life in Europe — won the Golden Bear for best film at the Berlin film fest.

A jury headed by Meryl Streep chose director Gianfranco Rosi's movie from a field of 18 contenders at the first of the year's major European film festivals.

IN PHOTOS: John Lloyd, Piolo at Berlin Film Fest

In "a year of thrillingly diverse films, the jury was swept away by the compassionate outrage of one in particular," Streep said.

"It's a daring hybrid of captured footage and deliberate storytelling that allows us to consider what documentary can do," she said. "It demands its place in front of our eyes, compels our engagement and action. It is urgent, imaginative and necessary filmmaking."

Mia Hansen-Loeve of France was named best director for "Things to Come," a drama starring Isabelle Huppert as a woman in her 50s reassessing her life.

The best actor prize went to Majd Mastoura for his role as a young Tunisian discovering love in a society in upheaval in director Mohamed Ben Attia's feature film debut "Hedi."

Trine Dyrholm was honored as best actress for her part in Danish director Thomas Vinterberg's "The Commune" as a television newsreader shaking up her and her husband's life by inviting their friends to live with them.

The best script prize went to Tomasz Wasilewski for "United States of Love," which he also directed, a movie portraying four women in provincial Poland in the early 1990s following the end of communist rule.

Cameraman Mark Lee Ping-Bing took took the award for an outstanding artistic contribution for his work in Chinese director Yang Chao's "Crosscurrent."