War-films honored at NY's Tribeca fest

A scene from Blessed by Fire

Tristan Bauer's Argentine/Spanish Blessed by Fire (Iluminados por el fuego), the tale of a Falklands War soldier, won the Founders Award for best narrative feature, and Deborah Scranton's The War Tapes, featuring footage from US soldiers in Iraq that presenter Ken Burns hailed for its "spellbinding brutality," took home the best documentary feature prize.

The audience award went to Linda Hattendorf's The Cats of Mirikitani, the documentary tale of a homeless Japanese-American who lost family members in the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima.

The awards were handed out last Saturday. De Niro and event co-founder Jane Rosenthal, actors Josh Lucas and Lucy Liu and New York film boosters Pat Kaufman and Katherine Oliver found the winners' names wrapped in giant fortune cookies, in synch with the event's Chinatown banquet hall locale, the Golden Bridge.

Egyptian director Marwan Hamed was named best new narrative filmmaker for The Yacoubian Building (Omaret Yacoubian), and Turkish helmer Pelin Esmer nabbed best new documentary filmmaker honors for The Play (Oyun).

German actor Jurgen Vogel took home the best actor in a narrative film award for The Free Will (Der Freie Wille), in a performance Lucas hailed as "one of the best I've seen in my life." Czech Republic actress Eva Holubova was named best actress in a narrative film for Holiday Makers (Ucastnici zajezdu).