MUMBAI: The public has cast its votes. The Broken Circle Breakdown and The Act of Killing have bagged the 15th Panorama Audience Awards for fiction film and documentary respectively.

The official award ceremony will be held on Berlinale Kinotag, 17 February. The awards will be presented by Panorama director Wieland Speck, radioeins programme director Robert Skuppin und tip film editor Robert Weixlbaumer. Radioeins film expert Knut Elstermann will host the event. Directly after the award ceremony, the winning fictional film will be shown.

The Panorama Audience Award has been given since 1999. Since 2011, both the best fiction film and the best documentary receive awards. Berlin artist Christian Bilger created the statuette.

During the Berlinale, movie-goers were asked to rate the films shown in the Panorama section, either on cards received after the screenings or online. Altogether over 28,000 votes were cast and counted.

This year the Panorama presented 52 productions from 33 countries, of which 20 screened in the Panorama Dokumente series. While in the category fictional films The Broken Circle Breakdown took the lead early on and won by a clear margin, with the documentaries it remained exciting until the very end.