COLOMBIAN FILM ON PARAMILITARY BATTLES WINS AT MIAMI FESTIVAL

MIAMI BEACH -- A film about young Colombians swept up in deadly
paramilitary battles in a Medellin neighborhood won a grand jury prize
for best documentary Saturday at the Miami International Film Festival.

``La Sierra'' won in the World and Ibero-American Cinema Competition.
It was shot over a year by an Associated Press newswoman and a former
AP photographer in a poor section of Medellin, a city ravaged by
Colombia's civil war and cocaine trade.

The neighborhood's leader is Edison Flores, a 22-year-old head of the
Bloque Metro, a paramilitary group. A rival paramilitary faction,
Cacique Nutibara, is shown trying to take control and Flores is
eventually killed.

``It's really just a story about youth trapped in their environment
and how they're affected by it and the lack of opportunities,'' said
filmmaker Scott Dalton, a photographer who worked for the AP in Latin
America from 1995-2002.

Dalton said he and Margarita Martinez, a reporter in the AP's Bogota
bureau, worked to earn the trust of both sides amid gang warfare that
left bodies in the street.

The film also features Cielo Munez, a mother widowed at the age of 15
who is trying to rebuild her life with a jailed boyfriend and a career
begging in the streets.

The Miami festival ends Sunday.