Coppola's Somewhere wins Venice Golden Lion (Roundup)

By Peter Mayer Sep 11, 2010, 20:23 GMT

Venice, Italy - Italian-Americans did it better at this year's Venice Film Festival, with the Sofia Coppola-directed Somewhere winning the Golden Lion on Saturday for best film, and Vincent Gallo picking up the award for best male actor.

Somewhere, which looks at the loneliness faced by a Hollywood star, follows protagonist Johnny Marco, played by Stephen Dorff,

whose supposedly glamorous but essentially shallow life is suddenly changed when his 11-year-old daughter, Chloe, played by Ellen Fanning, comes to stay with him.

'I cannot believe it, I cannot believe it ... this means so much for the film,' Coppola said after the festival's jury president, filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, had handed her the statuette.

Tarantino, who headed the seven-member jury including Oscar- winning Italian director Gabriele Salvatores, said that the choice of Somewhere 'was a unanimous decision.' He noted that the jury had been captivated from Somewhere's first scene: Marco speeding round and round a track in his black Ferarri - apparently going nowhere.

'We kept returning to this film even when we were discussing some of the others,' Tarantino said.

In her acceptance speech, the 39-year-old Coppola paid homage 'for teaching me' to her father, Francis Ford Coppola director of such famous films as The Godfather and Apocalypse Now.

Gallo, whose leading role in Essential Killing earned him the award for best male actor, did not pick up the Coppa Volpi prize in person. It was received on his behalf by the film's Polish director, Jerzy Skolimowski.

'Come out Vincent, I know you are here somewhere,' Skolimowski joked.

In Essential Killing, Gallo plays Mohammed, a man captured by the US military in Afghanistan and taken to an Eastern European detention centre, from which he escapes, leaving a bloody trail behind him.

Skolimowski picked up the Special Jury Prize for Essential Killing.

The Festival's Coppa Volpi for best female actress went to French- Greek actress Ariane Labed for her role as a sexually coy, 20- something misanthrope, Marina, in Greek director Athina Rachel Tsangari's Attenberg.

Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia won the festival's Silver Lion award for best director for A Sad Trumpet Ballad, the story of two circus clowns set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War and Francisco Franco's dictatorship.

A Special Lion for an Overall Work was bestowed by the jury to veteran US director Monte Hellman, whose Road to Nowhere was one of the 24 films in this year's official festival competition.

The world's oldest cinema contest, the Venice Film Festival this year marked its 67th edition.