Gay Nazi movie triumphs at Rome Film Festival

A Danish movie about a gay love affair between two members of a neo-Nazi group won top honours at the Rome Film Festival, while Helen Mirren won the best actress award.

Mirren won for her depiction of Leo Tolstoy's wife in Michael Hoffman's The Last Station, while Meryl Streep picked up a career achievement award.

The winning movie, Brotherhood, takes a hard look at the neo-Nazi group that the leading character, Lars, joins after leaving the army.

The group carries out raids on homosexuals, but Lars and his mentor in the group, Jimmy, begin a love affair that they try to keep secret.

Brotherhood is the first feature film by Nicolo Donato, a 35-year-old who previously worked as a fashion photographer.

The jury handing out the awards was headed by Oscar-winning director Milos Forman.

The best actor award went to Italy's Sergio Castellitto, who played a single parent and blue-collar worker dreaming that his son will become a boxing champ in the movie Alza la Testa.

The festival paid homage to Streep through the career award and a retrospective of her work. Her cooking flick Julie & Julia, in which she plays Julia Child, was shown out of competition and was chosen to close the festival.

At the award ceremony, a black-clad Streep was presented with the career achievement prize by Giuseppe Tornatore, the Italian director who won an Oscar for best foreign film with Cinema Paradiso.