Hong Kong-born director Wayne Wang won the award for best film at the San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain for his new low-budget work A Thousand Years of Good Prayers.

The movie, about a widower from Beijing who visits his divorced daughter in the U.S., was one of 16 competing for the Concha de Oro, or Golden Shell, prize.

Chinese-American actor Henry O in the lead role took the honours for best actor in the prize ceremony held Saturday in San Sebastian.

Wang, who was highly acclaimed for 1990s films such as The Joy Luck Club, has moved into big Hollywood projects such as 2002's Maid in Manhattan, starring Jennifer Lopez, and 2006's The Last Holiday, with Queen Latifah.

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, based on a story by award-winning author Yiyun Li, marks a return to more modest projects for Wang.

The San Sebastian festival, which opened on a high note with David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises, also had praise for British filmmaker Nick Broomfield, who won the best director prize for The Battle for Haditha.

The film is about an investigation into the 2005 killings by U.S. marines of civilians in the Iraqi city of Haditha.

Another war-inspired film, Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame, won a special prize from a jury, led by novelist-director Paul Auster.

In the film Iranian director Hana Makhmalbaf, who is just 18, tells the story of a young girl who wants to go to school in Bamiyan, the Afghan village where hardline Taliban militants demolished historic statues of the Buddha in 2001.

Spain's Gracia Querejeta won an award for the screenplay for Siete Mesas (Seven Billiards Tables) and the film's Blanca Portillo won best actress in her role as the widow of a pool hall operator.
 
U.S. screenwriter John Sayles shared the award for best script for his film Honeydripper, about a juke joint in 1950s Alabama.

The festival paid tribute Saturday night to Hollywood actor Richard Gere, who was honoured with the Donostia Prize as "a universal icon of the cinema." It also honoured actress Liv Ullman.