'White Ribbon' wins Fipresci prize

Haneke pic named foreign critics' film of the year

By JOHN HOPEWELL

International critics have voted 'The White Ribbon' film of the year.

"The White Ribbon," Michael Haneke's Cannes Palme d'Or winner and Germany's choice for Oscar consideration, has won the Intl. Federation of Film Critics (Fipresci) Grand Prix for film of the year.

The prize will be handed out at the opening ceremony of the San Sebastian Film Festival on Sept. 18.

San Sebastian has also announced some of its programming choices.

These include the world theatrical premiere of the final edit of Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross' "The Shock Doctrine," which screened as a work in progress at Berlin.

A critique of Nobel laureate Milton Friedman's theories on economics and disaster capitalism, "Doctrine" will first be screened on U.K. digital TV channel More4 on Tuesday. San Sebastian is its first cinema audience outing.

"The aim was to get a satisfactory argument in place. The subject's open-ended: the final edit tries to round it off in an effective way," said Josh Hyams, head of TV at pic's producer, Revolution Films.

Winterbottom and producer Andrew Eaton have a long relationship with San Sebastian. Winterbottom won director prize there last year for "Genova."

A second out-of-competition special screening will be the final version of Tom DiCillo's docu about the Doors, "When You're Strange."

"Ribbon" will screen in San Sebastian's Zabaltegi-Pearls section with three other additions: Terry Gilliam's "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," Rachid Bouchareb's "London River," set against the background of the 2005 London bombings, and Sherry Horman's Venice Days' screener "Desert Flower," an adaptation of model Waris Dirie's bestselling autobiography.