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After putting in his time in a series of studio comedies early this decade like Road Trip and 40 Days, 40 Nights, Paulo Costanzo found his indie groove, lending his wry presence to the Douglas Coupland-scripted Everything's Gone Green and the horror film Splinter. Now, as Evan Lawson on the USA series Royal Pains, he's got an out-of-the-box cable hit to his name. Movieline talked to the 30-year-old actor about improvisation, Josie and the Pussycats, and that whole "de-Jewing" kerfuffle.

MONTREAL -- German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's debut feature The Lives of Others grabbed the People's Choice award at the Vancouver International Film Festival, which ended Friday. Henckel's political thriller, set in 1984-era East Berlin, was selected as the top international film by festival audiences, with Mystic Ball, Greg Hamilton's portrait of a Burmese sport coming away with the audience award for most popular Canadian film. Political and social-policy themed films took home the bulk of trophies. The juried best documentary feature award went to Connie Field's Have You Heard From Johannesburg. Vancouver's competition jury also gave a Special Jury Prize to Radiant City, a treatise on the changing face of the suburbs from Canada's Gary Burns and Jim Brown. Earlier in the festival, John Torres took the Dragons and Tigers Award for Todo Todo Teros (the Philippines), a film dealing with politics and terrorism. And the best western Canada feature film award went to Everything's Gone Green, a drama set in Vancouver from director Paul Fox, and with a screenplay by Generation-X novelist Douglas Coupland. Carmen Moore grabbed the Artistic Merit Award for her performance in Unnatural and Accidental, Canadian director Carl Bessai's adaptation of a play about aboriginal women.