Rome film festival draws 150,000

(ANSA) - Rome, October 25 - More than 150,000 visitors flocked to the ninth edition of the ten-day Rome film festival which came to a close on Saturday, a festival representative said.
    "The same audience participated in an active way, voting for the film they loved most," said Paolo Ferrari, President of the Cinema Foundation for Rome in a statement Saturday, the last day of the Festival Internazionale del Film di Roma, which ran October 16-25. The People's Choice Award in the Gala category for major motion pictures went to the Brazilian-British adventure thriller Trash, directed by Stephen Daldry. The film set amid the slums of Rio de Janeiro stars three teenagers without previous acting experience in addition to Martin Sheen and Rooney Mara. The People's Choice Award for Cinema Today went to Xu Ang's legal drama, 12 Citizens. The Chinese film, which beat out 15 other films vying for the award, channels the 1957 classic 12 Angry Men, but is the director's portrait of Beijing through characters based on real life people. An Indian film based on the Shakespearean tragedy Hamlet took the People's Choice Award in the World Genre category. Vishal Bhardwaj's Haider, set in insurgency-plagued Kashmir during clashes of 1995, traces a poet's return to seek answers about his missing father.