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Spain proved the big victor at this year's 11th annual Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival winning awards for best picture, best documentary, best opera prima and best screenplay at the event's closing ceremony Monday night in Hollywood.

Winning for best picture, Spain's "El Corazon de la Tierra" tells the story of mounting tensions between local Spanish workers and their British employers in an Andalusia mining town. Directed by Antonio Cuadri, the Spanish film stars Catalina Sandino Moreno.

Spanish actor Javier Bardem accepted the award for best documentary for "Invisibles", which was directed by Fernando Leon de Aranoa, Javier Corcuera, Mariano Barroso, Wim Wenders and Isabel Coixet. The film marks Bardem's debut as a producer with support from the humanitarial organization Doctors Without Borders.

Other winners of the evening's event, which took place at ArcLight's Cinerama Dome, included Spain's "Ladrones" for best opera prima, Spain/Cuba's "Madrigal" for best screenplay, Paul Leduc for best director for Mexico's "El Cobrador" and from the U.S., "The Grass Grows Green: Life and Death From Behind the Recruiting Office Desk" directed by Jesus Beltran for best short.

MADRID -- Oscar-nominated actress Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace) has lined up alongside Sienna Guillory, Hugh Dancy, Bernard Hill and Joaquim de Almeida to star in Antonio Cuadri's The Heart of the Earth, producers announced Thursday. The film boasts a €12 million ($14.3 million) budget and will shoot for 12 weeks in Spain and Portugal beginning March 31. The story, written by Cuadri, is set around the British-owned mines of Rio Tinto in 1888 and depicts the friendship of two women, one Spanish and the other British, against the social upheavals of the time. The tale is based on the true story of the arrival of Cuban anarchist Maximiliano Tornet, which resulted in an organized strike at the mine -- the first ecological demonstration in history -- that ended in a massacre. The Heart of the Earth is a Spanish-British-Portuguese co-production, produced by Juan Carlos Orihuela and Luis Angel Bellaba of Manufacturas Audiovisuales with the support of Jose Portela's Abra Prods. The U.K.'s Heart of the Earth Productions Ltd. and Future Film, and Costa do Castelo Filmes from Portugal, will co-produce. International sales are being handled by Michael Ryan and Guy Collins' London-based Sequence Film/IAC Film.