Austere Austrian drama Amour that tackles death and aging won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film on Sunday.

The French-language film became the second Austrian movie to capture the Academy Award. World War II drama The Counterfeiters won the Oscar for top foreign film in 2007.

The honor caps a year-long run of awards for the film by Austrian director Michael Haneke, whose period drama The White Ribbon was up for the same Oscar in 2010.

Haneke gave credit for the honor to the film's stars, veteran French actors Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva.

"Thank you ... to my main actors, Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant, because without them I (would not be standing) here," the director said as he accepted the award.

Amour won the Palme d'Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, the fest's top prize, and best foreign film at Hollywood's Golden Globe Awards in January. It was also named best film by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Society of Film Critics.

The unflinching take on devotion, old age and illness details the everyday struggles and indignities of elderly Parisian couple Anne and Georges as they confront Anne's slide toward death.

Georges, played by Trintignant, cares for bed-ridden Anne, played by Riva, who has difficulty moving and speaking following a stroke.

Haneke has said Amour was inspired by caring for an aged aunt facing death.

Searching for Sugar Man, about a singer whose musical star faded without a trace until he was rediscovered in South Africa, won the best documentary feature Oscar.

The film tells the story of Sixto Rodriguez, who made two albums in the early 1970s but then quit music - and who knows nothing about his fame on another continent.

The documentary was made by first-time director Malik Bendjelloul, who first discovered Rodriguez while traveling for six months in Africa in 2006, and was fascinated by his story.

The award was accepted by Bendjelloul and producer Craig Bartholomew Strydom, who explained why Rodriguez did not attend the Oscars show.

"He didn't want to take any of the credit himself. That just about says everything about that man and his story that you want to know," he said.

Bendjelloul said he learned that Rodriguez was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1942, but his musical career ended almost before it began, while all other stars around him were making musical history in Motown.

But while his records failed to take off at home, a bootleg copy somehow made it to South Africa, where it struck a chord with progressive young whites, exasperated with the apartheid system.

His success there was such that, given the fact that the artist himself was not around, bizarre stories began to emerge about him, including one that claimed that he had committed suicide by setting himself alight on stage.

Reuters - AFP