As the 60th Edinburgh Film Festival closed last weekend, festival patron Sean Connery presented the audience award to Kevin Smith for Clerks 2, a clear winner with 78 per cent of the vote.

Runners-up were Little Miss Sunshine, another US comedy; and London to Brighton, for which Paul Andrew Williams collected the festival's New Directors award. The jury chairman presented the Michael Powell Award for Best British Film to Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe, co-directors of Brothers of the Head, screened at the Dublin festival earlier this year.

Among the guests participating in public interviews at Edinburgh were Charlize Theron, Julie Walters, Sigourney Weaver, Arthur Penn, and Steven Soderbergh, who insisted that Ocean's Thirteen, due for release next summer, will be the final instalment in that franchise. "George (Clooney) wanted to go out strong," Soderbergh said, adding that Ocean's Twelve was too complicated and that he wanted to return the series to its comedy roots. Al Pacino joins the regular cast as the villain of the new film. "This guy's a monster," Soderbergh said.