The Berlin festival crowned a Carmen adaptation set in a South African township with its top award, the Golden Bear, on Saturday night.

U-Carmen Ekhayelitsha, directed by British-born director Mark Dornford-May, tells the story of a factory worker who fatally stabs a colleague in a fight and falls in love with a police officer in contemporary South Africa. The film is shot in the manner of a documentary and is entirely sung in the Xhosa language.

Sophie Scholl: The Last Days, a film about the German resistance against Hitler, won a directing silver bear for its director, Marc Rothemund, and an acting award for its star, Julia Jentsch.

In other categories, the jury prize went to the first feature of Chinese director Gu Changwei, Peacock, a family portrait set in 1970s rural China. The best actor Silver Bear was awarded to 19-year-old Lou Taylor Pucci for his role as a teenager who can't quit sucking his thumb in Thumbsucker, directed by REM's Mike Mills.

Meanwhile, the best European film award was given to Paradise Now, a drama following two Palestinian suicide bombers as they carry out a mission in Israel. Demonstrators outside the awards venue held a banner reading Stop Glorifying Suicide Killers in protest against the film.

Malaysian director Tsai Ming Liang and The Wayward Cloud earned a silver bear for outstanding artistic contribution and the Alfred Bauer Prize, which praises films "taking the art of film in a new direction". The feature describes the lives of five actors working in the porn industry.