May 2, 2008 (guardian.co.uk) -- Vampires and war-torn Africa were uppermost in the minds of judges as Robert De Niro's seventh Tribeca film festival bestowed its annual awards in New York last night.

Tomas Alfredson's Swedish film Let the Right One In, about a bullied boy who falls for a vampire girl, was named best narrative while Virginia Reticker's documentary winner Pray The Devil Back explores the lives of female peace campaigners in Liberia.

There was joy, too, for best actor winner Thomas Turgoose, the precocious Grimsby-born young star of Shane Meadows' London-set drama Somers Town who shared his prize with fellow cast member Piotr Jagiello. Ireland's Eileen Walsh won best actress for Declan Recks' Eugene O'Brien adaptation, Eden.

The audience favourite will be announced on Saturday when the latest instalment of the controversial event comes to a close.

Hatched in 2002 by De Niro and business partner Jane Rosenthal to revive the city's economy following the September 11 attacks, Tribeca is called "the festival that ate Manhattan" by critics who say venues are too spread out across town and decry the low-profile entry selections.

Tribeca comes just two weeks before the Cannes international film festival and clearly suffers from flying so close to the French jamboree's orbit. Critics say artistic gems are hard to find and the festival rarely unearths new talent.

Nonetheless, this year's highlights included rising romantic lead Michelle Monaghan as a truck driver in Trucker, a profile of female combat troops in Iraq called Lioness, and the supernatural horror story From Within.

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Posted by Vladimir Sat, 05/03/2008 - 15:20

 

Chapter 06

Several weeks had elapsed since the conversation in Reginald Clarke's studio. The spring was now well advanced and had sprinkled the meadows with flowers, and the bookshelves of the reviewers with fiction. The latter Ernest turned to good account, but from the flowers no poem blossomed forth.

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Youth Guilty of Vampire Ritual Killing

August 2, 2002 (NTL World News) - A teenager has been found guilty of murdering his elderly neighbour and drinking her blood in a vampire ritual. Art student Mathew Hardman, 17, butchered Mabel Leyshon at her home in Llanfairpwll, Anglesey, last November. He has been jailed for a minimum of 12 years.

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Chapter 19: Awake

*blinking her eyes open she feels as if she's had the worse blood hangover ever*

"Aiiiiiiigh! What the...*looks around*Well, Hello Demon, nice howdoyoudo huh?"

*rubs her head and sits up feeling woozy and trying to get her eyes to focus*

"Ven? is that you?" *squints* "Mercy Girl, you've been away awhile *smiles to her*Welcome back!"

*tries to stand and go to the bar for a little 'hair of the dog' but quickly sits again*

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My darling

You are tired, its physical it the age.

Go see a shrink or take a pill,

or hug your sadness like an eyeless doll,

you need to sleep.

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The Vigil.....a tragic love story

I have yearned for tonight for so long,
In nights dark cloak I wait.
How can what we want be wrong?
When all we feel is love not hate.

Here within the stable block,
I nestled in the hay.
Whilst listening for the churchyard clock,
To chime the hours away.

I felt not fearful of the night,
Or anything within.
For he had given me clearer sight,
Of nature and her kin.

Though he was only a humble man,
And I a highborn lady.
We loved as no two others can,
For that was our sweet destiny.

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