The seventh Hanoi International Film Festival featured 117 movies from 51 different countries.

"It was a pleasant surprise from a very diverse international jury, which confirms that the film is understandable, despite people's very different cultural codes," said director Marko Raat.

"Biwa is certainly not a film that simply brings people together due to shared tastes - but the fact that the film won two awards shows that some of the decision-makers must have been moved deeply enough by the film to get the rest of the jury members on board with their experience," he added.

An international co-production between Estonia and Finland, "8 Views of Lake Biwa" is loosely based on the novel of the same name by Max Dauthendy. It was selected as the Estonian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards.

The movie will now be screened at the American Film Institute in Washington, D.C. in its bid to gain an Oscar nomination.

According to a press release, the eight views is an Eastern artistic tradition that describes humans' state of mind through eight poetic motifs. These include evening glow, snow, sails returning in the evening, rain, the autumn moon, temple bell, clear breeze and wild geese departing. In Japan, these elements are interpreted primarily in the area surrounding Lake Biwa.

These motifs provide the framework for eight intertwining tragic love stories set at modern Old Believers' fishing villages near Lake Peipus, which stand on the edge of Estonian-Russian settlements and culture. The Old Believers are Russians who fled to Estonia in the late 17th century due to persecution in Russia

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