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Singing Chen returned to Taiwan earlier this week after earning the Tagesspiegel Readers' Prize at the Berlin Film Festival. PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES

Singing Chen (陳芯宜), director of Taiwanese film God Man Dog (流浪神狗人) returned to Taipei Tuesday after winning an award in Berlin for her allegorical tragicomedy about the crisis of faith in contemporary Taiwan.

Chen said upon her return that she was jubilant and excited to win the Tagesspiegel Readers' Prize affiliated with the annual Berlin International Film Festival.

The prize was sponsored by the Berlin-based national daily Der Tagesspiegel to honor young filmmakers whose movies have been selected for screening in the Berlin Film Festival's Forum for New Cinema.

Noting that the film depicts some of the phenomena and problems in Taiwan, Chen said she wanted to introduce Taiwan to the international community through the film.

"It is a great honor and encouragement to win this prize," Chen said, adding that she was almost moved to tears when the German audience gave her a standing ovation at the end of the film.

The movie will be screened in Taiwan from the second half of March, Chen said, adding that she is hopeful the film will win critical acclaim and become a local box-office success.

Saudi Arabia, despite not having any cinemas, will hold its first-ever government-approved film festival on May 20, a local newspaper announced Tuesday.

The five-day festival will screen Arabic films from the region and is being organized by the state-sponsored literary club in the eastern city of Dammam and the Saudi Society of Arts and Culture.

Saudi Arabia banned the screening of movies in the early 1980s and the country's conservative clergy views them as a waste of time and a sign of impiety.

The competition is meant to boost the local film industry, which is practically nonexistent, and will award a prize for best short narrative and documentary as well as select the best screenplay and raise funds for it to be turned into a film.

In May's festival, men and women will be seated in different halls during the screenings, according to organizers.

Australian actress Nicole Kidman wants to improve her work-life balance - by making films that her children can enjoy.

The five-month pregnant Kidman, a mother of two, was in Japan to promote her latest big-budget fantasy film, The Golden Compass, and said she had deliberately chosen the child-friendly script.

"My Bella and Connor are 13 and 15, so they have seen the film and they loved it ... my child inside won't see the film for a long time," she told a news conference.

Actor Jude Law will appear as Heath Ledger's character, along with Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell , in the unfinished film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Law's spokeswoman said Monday.

They will all play the role of Tony in the fantasy film, which Ledger had been filming before his death.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is described as a fantastical morality tale about a traveling theater company which can control the imaginations of others.

New York state health authorities launched a campaign Tuesday urging major film studio owners to protect children from seeing movies with smoking scenes.

In full page advertisements in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, Health Commissioner Richard Daines said films showing tobacco use should get an "R" rating, which requires children under 17 to be accompanied by an adult.

But he did suggest an exception for films that show the dangers of tobacco use or depict the smoking habit of a historical figure.

"Exposure to smoking in movies is the single most powerful pro-tobacco influence on children today, accounting for the recruitment of half of all new adolescent smokers," Daines said in the ad.

Owen Wilson is going back to work for the first time since his alleged suicide attempt last summer.

Wilson, 39, and co-star Jennifer Aniston begin shooting March 10 on 20th Century Fox's Marley & Me, the studio said. It tells the tale of a couple who adopt a dog to give parenthood a trial run, then find the mischievous pooch more than they bargained for.

Due out Christmas Day, Marley & Me is directed by David Frankel and based on the book by John Grogan . 
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