Elena, a film drama by Andrey Zvyazintsev which has garnered international acclaim over the past year, has won the main prize at the 22nd TIFF festival - Norway`s biggest film event.

Zvyazintsev`s film won the festival`s Aurora prize, awarded by Tromso International Film Festival for the best film in the Competition Program at the closing ceremony on Saturday night. The prize includes around $17,000 to fund screenings of the picture across Norway.

The film also scooped the FIPRESCI award from the international board of film critics.

The jury of the festival described Elena as a "very Russian film" where personal conflicts are played out with alarming realism. The jury also praised the brilliance of the actors and the unexpected turns in the story, heightened by the stylish setting and Philip Glass` unnerving score.

The competition program featured a total of 11 films, including works from France, Germany, Belgium, the USA and China. As well as Elena, Russia was represented by Aleksandr Sokurov`s Faust, which won the Golden Lion at last year`s Venice Festival.

Altogether, the Tromso festival screened around 100 films. Several Russian films were also screened on the fringes of the festival over the course of the week. Among them were Viktor Ginzburg`s Generation P, Innocent Saturday by Aleksandr Mindadze, Dmitry Povolotsky`s My Father is Baryshnikov, Nikita Mikhalkov`s At Home Among Strangers, A Stranger At Home, and a documentary about the murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya, A Bitter Taste of Freedom, by Marianna Goldovskaya.
sections: Culture