Israel’s ‘Lebanon’ wins top prize at Venice Film Festival

VENICE - Lebanon, a war drama by Israeli director Samuel Maoz, Saturday won the Golden Lion for best film at the Venice Film Festival.

The film is set during the first day of Israel’s 1982 conflict in Lebanon. It is shot from the perspective of soldiers holed up in a tank - a claustrophobic experience audiences are made to share by the way the film is shot.

Speaking at a festival news conference earlier this week, Maoz said he was so traumatized by his real-life experience as a young soldier during the Lebanon war that that it took him 25 years to muster the strength to make the movie.

“Women Without Men”, another film about conflict in the Middle East - this time the story of four women set against the backdrop of Iran’s 1953 CIA-backed coup d’etat - won its Iranian-born visual artist Shirin Neshat, the Silver Lion award for best director.

The Festival’s Coppa Volpi prize for best female actress went to Russian Ksenia Rappoport, who plays a waitress who meets a former policeman on a speed date in Italian director Giuseppe Capotondi’s noir thriller, “La Doppia Ora”.

British actor Colin Firth picked up the Coppa Volpi for best male actor for his role as a discreet college professor coming to terms with the death of his gay lover in A Single Man, US fashion designer Tom Ford’s debut as film director.

The jury, headed by Taiwan-born Ang Lee, bestowed its Special Jury award to “Soul Kitchen”, a romantic comedy directed by Turkish-descended German director, Fatih Akin. The movie revolves around a restaurant and its owner, a shaggy-haired German-Greek.

The 66th edition of the Venice Film Festival saw 25 films in competition and was widely viewed as a “return to form” for the world’s oldest film contest - the inaugural event was held in 1932.

This year’s festival will also be remembered for its politcally charged atmosphere, both on screen and of it.

Controversial US director Michael Moore’s premiered his new documentary “Capitalism: A Love Story”, an assault on corporate greed and Wall Street wheeling and dealing, which, Moore alleges, led to the subprime mortgage crisis and the bankruptcy of several major

banks and corporations such as General Motors.

And stealing some of the show was Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who earlier this week arrived to attend a gala screening of Oliver Stone’s South of the Border - a denunciation of the US media smear campaign against the controversial Latin American leader.

The Venice Film Festival, which takes place in the scenic surroundings of the Italian lagoon city’s Lido, this year also saw an array of film stars, including George Clooney, Eva Mendes, Matt Damon, Nicolas Cage, Isabelle Huppert, Viggo Mortensen and Egyptian

veteran Omar Sharif, all walking the red carpet.