Berlin film fest closes with Iranian triumph

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Iranian actress Sarina Farhadi and director Asghar Farhadi during the awards ceremony of the international Berlinale film festiv

The Berlin film festival wrapped up on Sunday after handing a gripping Iranian drama, Nader and Simin: A Separation, its Golden Bear top prize in a year spotlighting the country’s embattled directors.
The picture by Asghar Farhadi, which also swept the acting prizes, tells the story of a crumbling marriage and examines the conflict between strict religious observance and the shifting values of the educated urban elite.
It had been the hot favourite among 16 international contenders to win the coveted Golden Bear at the first major European film festival of the year, which tends to reward timely, politically charged cinema.
Farhadi, who had already won a best director prize for his haunting film About Elly at the 2009 Berlinale, paid tribute to banned Iranian director Jafar Panahi in his acceptance speech.
He told reporters later that film-making was his means of political expression, rather than public declarations, and that the prize would ensure wide exposure for his picture.
“I prefer to make my films and try to express myself in my films. I am a filmmaker, I am not a hero,” he said after the awards ceremony. “If I had said something on the stage, would that have changed anything? But my films can change something.”