Brazilian police brutality drama wins at Berlin fest

A blood-soaked Brazilian drama about police brutality, "The Elite Squad", beat out favourites from Hollywood and Britain to win the Golden Bear for best picture Saturday at the 58th Berlin Film

Festival.

Director Jose Padilha based his first feature film on actual accounts of violence and corruption among the security forces in Rio de Janeiro.

"The Elite Squad", which sharply divided critics and whose win came as a surprise to many festival-goers, was a major box office hit in Brazil. But some critics accused Padilha of glorifying the brutality he aimed to condemn.

Padilha, 40, accepted the statuette from this year's jury president, Greek-French filmmaker Costa-Gavras ("Missing").

"Costa-Gavras is a hero for all Latin American filmmakers so it's extra special that we're here," he said.

The jury's runner-up prize went to "Standard Operating Procedure," a probing look at the systematic abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.

The film, by Oscar-winning director Errol Morris, was the first documentary ever to enter the competition in Berlin, which ranks among Europe's top three film festivals.

The best director prize went to US filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson for the heavily favoured "There Will Be Blood" in which British-born Daniel Day-Lewis gives a towering performance as a tyrannical oil prospector.

"Daniel is an actor who makes any director look like a good director," said Anderson, who won a Golden Bear in 2000 for "Magnolia".