German Drama and PETA Doc Take Top Awards At Hamptons Fest

The Hamptons is more than just a place for rich New Yorkers to spend the weekend. ("I've got a place in the Hamptons!" you'll hear them say, at least in movies.) It's also home to the Hamptons International Film Festival, where the awards for the 15th annual fest were given out Saturday.

The top jury prizes, the Golden Starfish awards, went to Valerie for best narrative feature and I Am an Animal: The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA for best documentary feature. Valerie, from director Birgit Möller, is a German drama about a supermodel who falls on hard times. I Am an Animal, by Matthew Galkin (loudQUIETloud: A Film About the Pixies), is about the founder of the animal-rights group.

The jury prize for cinematography went to PJ Dillon's work in Kings (Ireland's entry in the foreign-language Oscar category), while Chris Eigeman's Turn the River -- a drama about a pool shark fleeing her ex-husband -- took prizes for its screenplay (also by Eigeman) and its lead performance by Famke Jansson.

Meanwhile, the audience awards went to Four Minutes in the narrative category and Body of War for documentary. Four Minutes is another German drama, this time about an elderly piano teacher giving lessons to a young prison inmate. Body of War is about an injured Iraq veteran and was directed by Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue (and despite what IMDb says, it is the same Phil Donahue you're thinking of).

Other sponsored awards at the Hamptons fest: the Woozyfly.com Award for Best Music in a Film went to Mark Mancina's work in August Rush; the Brizzolara Family Award for Films of Conflict and Resolution was split by Behind Forgotten Eyes and Soldiers of Conscience; and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Film Prize in Science and Technology (given to films that depict science and scientists in fresh, innovative ways) went to The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.