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The Golden Lola for best feature film went to veteran director Edgar Reitz’s Home From Home - Chronicle of a Vision at the German Film Awards.Scroll down for full list of winners

The black-and-white epic, set in a fictitious village in Germany’s Hunsrück region in the mid-19th century, also received awards for Best Director and Best Screenplay (shared with co-author Gert Heidenreich) after being nominated by the members of the German Film Academy in a total of six categories.

The co-production with Margaret Ménégoz’s Les Films du Losange is handled internationally by Arri Media Worldsales and was released theatrically in Germany by Concorde Filmverleih.

The prizes were handed out at the 64th annual film awards, held in Berlin.

Austrian accent to ceremony

The night belonged to Austrian film-maker Andreas Prochaska and his producers Helmut Grasser of Allegro Film and Stefan Arndt of X Filme Creative Pool with their Alpine western The Dark...

NEW YORK -- "Blood and Chocolate", a tale about a morally and romantically conflicted young woman who also happens to be a werewolf, is as silly as its title. Handsomely filmed by director Katja von Garnier ("Bandits") in a style that resembles a travelogue for Bucharest, this week's horror entry not screened for the press lacks the suspense, gore or fun necessary to put it, pardon the pun, ahead of the pack.

The film's heroine is Vivian (Agnes Bruckner), a 19-year-old who works in a chocolate shop when she isn't out indulging her lycanthropic tendencies with fast runs through the woods. Vivian is destined to be the next mate for pack leader Gabriel (Olivier Martinez), whose strict rules about the pack hunting together or not at all have helped ensure their survival for hundreds of years.

Ignoring that rule at his own peril is Vivian's cousin Rafe (Bryan Dick), who likes to hang out with a gang of fellow werewolves dubbed "The Five" at Bucharest's hottest nightspots.

Things become complicated when Vivian falls for Aiden (Hugh Dancy), a visiting artist who happens to be doing research for a new graphic novel about her kind. When he and Rafe find themselves locked in combat, it sets off a chain of events culminating with Vivian having to decide where her loyalties lie.

While the film can be admired for its restraint and is certainly impressive on a purely visual level, it also is a lugubrious, frequently silly effort that will have horror fans baring fangs themselves.

Particularly annoying is a montage of tender moments between the young lovers, scored with appropriately schmaltzy music, that wouldn't be out of place in a Lindsay Lohan romantic comedy. And the final gun battle is more than a little anticlimactic for a picture of this sort, even if they are using silver bullets.

Not helping matters are the lackadaisical visual effects, with the werewolves going into action signaled by the donning of requisitely spooky contact lenses and stuntpersons performing Olympic-style gymnastic feats.

The lead performers certainly are highly attractive, making this one of the more sensual werewolf pictures in quite a while -- and to their credit, they do manage to keep a straight face throughout. But ultimately, the anemic "Blood and Chocolate" could have benefited from a little less chocolate and a lot more blood.

BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE

MGM

MGM Pictures and Lakeshore Entertainment present a Berrick Filmproduktion production in association with Lakeshore Entertainment

Credits:

Director: Katja von Garnier

Screenplay: Ehren Kruger

Executive producers: Ehren Kruger, Robert Bernacchi

Producers: Tom Rosenberg, Gary Lucchesi, Hawk Koch, Richard Wright, Wolfgang Esenwein

Director of photography: Brendan Galvin

Production designer: Kevin Phipps

Editors: Martin Walsh, Emma Hickcox

Music: Johnny Klimek, Reinhold Heil

Cast:

Vivian: Agnes Bruckner

Aiden: Hugh Dancy

Gabriel: Olivier Martinez

Astrid: Katja Riemann

Rafe: Bryan Dick

Ulf: Chris Geere

Gregor: Tom Harper

Running time -- 98 minutes

MPAA rating: PG-13...

German helmer Katja von Garnier is in negotiations to direct MGM's upcoming werewolf flick, Blood and Chocolate. Von Garnier, who directed the 1997 hit Bandits, comes to the project after Rupert Wainwright dropped out in December to direct Revolution Studios' remake of John Carpenter's classic horror film, The Fog. Based on a script by Ehren Kruger, Blood and Chocolate is being co-financed and co-produced by Lakeshore whose Tom Rosenberg and Gary Lucchesi are producing. Daniel Bobker and Kruger also are producing. Elizabeth Ingold and Stephanie Palmer are overseeing the project for the studio. The feature is based on the book by Annette Curtis Klause and is set in a secret society of werewolves living in a modern day society. At the center of the tale is a romance between a female werewolf and a human. Von Garnier first made her mark with the German language Making Up! in 1993. Last year she directed HBO's TV movie Iron Jawed Angels. Von Garnier is repped by CAA.