Lourdes finds favour at Birds Eye View

Lourdes, Jessica Hausner's stark, gripping account of one woman's religious pilgrimage, was tonight awarded the crowning prize at the annual Birds Eye View film festival in London. The film, which stars the French actor Sylvie Testud, has already picked up awards at film festivals in Venice, Vienna and Warsaw. It goes on general release in the UK on 26 March. Hausner's drama took the award for best feature. Elsewhere, Jenna Rosher's Junior was named best documentary while the award for best short film was split between the Oscar-nominated The Door, by Juanita Wilson, and Slaves, which was co-directed by Hanna Heilborn and David Aronowitsch. The festival was set up to champion the work of female film-makers in a male-dominated industry. Reports suggest that only about 7% of feature film directors are women. Recent successes, however, suggest that this may soon be changing. "This has been a brilliant year for women film-makers, not least with Kathryn Bigelow's historic win at the Oscars," said Amy Mole, managing director of Birds Eye View. "[This] has really helped focus the international spotlight on the lack of women film-makers within the industry."