European Film Awards

The German film "The Lives of Others" won the best picture award Saturday at the 19th annual European Film Awards held at Warsaw, Poland. The film edged out competitors including "Volver" (read about it below) and this year's winner at Cannes, "The Wind That Shakes the Barley," British director Ken Loach's saga set amid Ireland's struggle for independence in the early 1920s.

Directed and written by 33-year-old Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, the story of 'The Lives of Others' ("Das Leben der Anderen") is set in East Berlin, November 1984 and explores the ruthlessness of East Germany's all-pervasive secret police, the Stasi, through the story of a party loyalist trying to advance his career by collecting evidence on a playwright. Five years before its downfall, the former East-German government ensured its claim to power with a ruthless system of control and surveillance. Party-loyalist Captain Gerd Wiesler hopes to boost his career when given the job of collecting evidence against the playwright Georg Dreyman and his girlfriend, the celebrated theater actress Christa-Maria Sieland. What he didn't anticipate, however, was that submerging oneself into the world of the target also changes the surveillance agent. The immersion in the lives of others--in love, literature, free thinking and speech--makes Wiesler acutely aware of the meagerness of his own existence and opens to him a completely new way of life which he has ever more trouble resisting.

The film also picked up two more awards, with best actor award going to German actor Ulrich Muehe for his role as the Stasi agent Gerd Wiesler. The best screenwriter award went to Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, also the director. 'The Lives of Others' will have a limited release in USA in February.

(photo: Roman Polanski)

In the best director category, Spaniard Pedro Almodovar won for "Volver," an oddball comic drama that explores the culture of death in La Mancha — Almodovar's hometown — through three generations of strong women surviving without men. Penelope Cruz won the best actress award for her role in 'Volver'.

Celebrated director Roman Polanski, now 73, was honored with a lifetime achievement award in the country of his childhood for creating what the academy said "were some of the most unforgettable moments in cinema" with works like "Rosemary's Baby" (1968), "Chinatown (1974), and "The Pianist" (2002).