A Danish movie about a gay love affair between two members of a neo-Nazi group won top honours at the Rome Film Festival, while Helen Mirren won the best actress award.

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Mirren won for her depiction of Leo Tolstoy's wife in Michael Hoffman's The Last Station, while Meryl Streep picked up a career achievement award.

The winning movie, Brotherhood, takes a hard look at the neo-Nazi group that the leading character, Lars, joins after leaving the army.

The group carries out raids on homosexuals, but Lars and his mentor in the group, Jimmy, begin a love affair that they try to keep secret.

Brotherhood is the first feature film by Nicolo Donato, a 35-year-old who previously worked as a fashion photographer.

The jury handing out the awards was headed by Oscar-winning director Milos Forman.

The best actor award went to Italy's Sergio Castellitto, who played a single parent and blue-collar worker dreaming that his son will become a boxing champ in the movie Alza la Testa.

The festival paid homage to Streep through the career award and a retrospective of her work. Her cooking flick Julie & Julia, in which she plays Julia Child, was shown out of competition and was chosen to close the festival.

At the award ceremony, a black-clad Streep was presented with the career achievement prize by Giuseppe Tornatore, the Italian director who won an Oscar for best foreign film with Cinema Paradiso.