Sinner is a fictional story set against the real background of the Magdalen Laundries in Ireland in the 1960?ˉs. It's about two young ladies sent to the laundries, or to them as convent, for labors because of their sin -- pregnant before or outside marriage.

It's producer, BBC Northern Ireland and Parallel Films, won the heaviest award of the TV festival for the excellence of Sinner, the "Magnolia Award for Best TV Film."

Besides the biggest award, Sinner also wins the Magnolia Award for Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actress and Best Technology.

Lissie Mickery was awarded the Best Screenplay Award because he tells people in the world that as recently as in the 1970s, Catholic churches in the Northern Island could torture young ladies so much, and what the famous Magdalen Laundries really functions in the 1970s.

The film follows the harrowing story of Anne Marie (starring Anne Marie Duff), who committed to the local Magdalen laundry by her family for becoming pregnant outside marriage.

Despite her appalling treatment at the hands of the nuns, she is determined not to accept her position as society's dirty laundry. After the death of her best friend and her own struggles, Anne won at last and got her child back to start a new life.

The film brings to the audience a harrowing picture of the laundries. The laundries are "shelters" for pregnant unmarried women, run by Roman Catholic nuns.

The women in the laundries can be as young as 18 years old and all had been thrown out of their homes by their families. They had no way to go and forced to stay only in the laundries.

The sad thing is that when they found themselves incarcerated in the Magdalen Laundries and forced to work in grinding conditions, they could only bear it and could do nothing to run away.

Their babies were also taken away shortly after they were born and either placed in an orphanage or given away to new parents, often abroad, often without proper documentation.

The torture of the heroine Anne moved thousands of viewers at the screening rooms in Shanghai, and the performance of Anne Marie Duff was also acclaimed by all.

Anne Marie Duff then earned herself the best Actress Award at STVF.

Magnolia Awards is not a single award, but includes altogether 15 awards.

The chief awards are the best TV Film, director, actor and actress. Sinner snatches three of the main awards, but lost the best actor award to a Japanese boy actor Atsushi Ito for NHK's film Almost Eighteen.

Almost 18 also wins another award, which it shares with a Chinese TV drama Whisper in Winter. The two wins the Specia Jury Award for TV Films (also one of the Magnolia Awards).

The rest eight Magnolia Awards all went to the documentaries (in humanity and nature).

Chinese Central TV Station (CCTV)'s Dam Migrants wins the Magnolia Award for Best Documentary in the Humanities. BBC production Weird Nature wins the award for Best Nature Documentary.

The jury also chosen one documentary for humanity and one for nature as the special jury award (also Magnolia Awards). They are Shanghai TV Station's Mother for humanity and Flying Devils by National Geography.

The last two awards are for Best Photography in a Documentary in the Humanities and for Most Innovative Documentary in the Humanities.

Zheng Yongzhi of China(photographer of Dam Migrants) wins the former and the Israeli TV film Close And Far Away wins the latter.

(eastday.com June 18, 2002)