DHAKA: Billy Elliot director Stephen Daldry’s new film ‘Trash’, set amid the slums of Rio de Janeiro, has won the top prize at the Rome Film Festival.

The film stars three teenage boys with no previous acting experience and who speak Portuguese, reports the BBC.

While foraging in the Brazilian city’s rubbish dumps, their characters stumble upon a wallet and a key being sought by a corrupt police officer.

Written by Richard Curtis, ‘Trash’ also stars Martin Sheen and Rooney Mara.

Sheen plays an American missionary priest while Mara portrays an aid worker in the film, which is based on Andy Mulligan’s novel of the same name.

The book made the shortlist for the BBC Blue Peter Book Awards in 2010 but was later dropped because it was deemed unsuitable for the show’s younger viewers.

The Rome festival’s top prize was chosen by a public vote for the first time after the event dropped the jury system.

In the Cinema d’Oggi section, the top prize went to Chinese director Xu Ang’s ‘12 Citizens’, a film inspired by 1957 Hollywood classic ‘12 Angry Men’.

The main award in the Mondo Genre section went to ‘Haider’, a version of Hamlet set in Kashmir in 1995 and directed by Vishal Bhardwaj.

BDST: 1731 HRS, OCT 27, 2014