Berlin Film Festival Honours Star

As usual, the most coveted prizes at the world famous film event this year were the Golden and Silver Bears. Sally Hawkins won the Silver Bear prize for best actress at the 58th Berlin Film Festival for her performance as an infectiously optimistic school teacher in Mike Leigh's "Happy-Go-Lucky". 

The English film director sticks to his trademark kitchen-sink realism but takes as his heroine the irrepressibly positive primary school teacher Poppy, played by Hawkins.

Both Happy-Go-Lucky itself and Sally Hawkins had received rave reviews during the festival. Nigel Andrews, film critic of the Financial Times wrote: "Everyone has loved Happy-Go-Lucky. Lead actress Sally Hawkins comes on like a tipsy hurricane, clothed in what seem multi-coloured rag-bag of remnants picked up by a tornado and wrapped around her. She is the consummation of the toujours gai Leigh heroines that began, for most of us, with the title hostess of Abigail's Party." The 30-something North Londoner takes bicycle theft, raving madmen and singledom in her stride but also proves how disconcerting such cheer can be to other people not naturally disposed to it.