Faust wins best film at Venice as Asian cinema also shines

By Peter Mayer Sep 10, 2011, 19:11 GMT

Venice, Italy - Russian director Aleksander Sokurov's Faust won Saturday the Golden Lion for best film at the Venice Film Festival where Asian cinema also featured prominently - with the award for best director going to China's Cai Shangjun and best actress to his compatriot Deanie Ip.

At an evening gala award ceremony, festival jury president, Darren Aronofsky, praised Faust, an offbeat cinematic retelling of German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's 19th century play as a 'life-changing,' film.

The German-language film, shot in a faded, almost monochrome tint, is over two-hours long. However, Faust received a mixed reception during a press screening earlier this week in Venice, drawing some applause but also a few boos.

The festival's Coppa Volpi for best actress went to veteran singer and actress Deanie Ip for her role as the elderly but feisty domestic worker, Ah Tao, in compatriot Ann Hui's Tao jie (A Simple Life).

Picking up the award, Ip praised Hui and then spoke a few words in Italian thanking the audience.

Tao jie deals with the affectionate relationship between Ah Tao and Roger, the scion of a Hong Kong family which she has loyally served for almost 60 years, and explores issues of old-age and sickness in a subtle and sometimes humorous way.

German-born Irish actor Michael Fassbender won the festival's Coppa Volpi award for best male actor for his role in British artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen's Shame which deals with a dysfunctional relationship between a Manhattan office worker and his sister.

Fassbender appears in several scenes of full-frontal nudity as he plays Brandon, the 30-something brother whose routine existence of one-night stands and an obsession for internet pornography is disrupted when his sister, comes to stay with him.

'It's very nice when you take a chance and you hope it is relevant and people think you're relevant,' Fassbender said in his acceptance speech.

Cai's Ren shan ren hai (People Mountain People Sea) was a late addition to this year's festival lineup, where it was announced as the 'surprise' film.

The director, speaking earlier this week, revealed that authorities in China had compelled him to make changes to his film which portrays his homeland as a grim and often lawless place.

In the film the main character, quarry worker Lao Tie attempts to take the law into his own hands after the police fail to capture an ex-convict, Xiao Qiang, who is the man suspected of stabbing to death his brother.

Much of the action is set in a remote, mountain village in the country's Guizhou province and in a large, illegal mine where the film's reaches its explosive climax.

Host nation Italy was also among the prizes with the Special Jury Award going to Emanuele Crialese's Terraferma which deals with the topical theme of migration to Italy from across the Mediterranean.

Set on an unnamed southern Italian island, Terraferma tells the story of a family who decides to illegally shelter a pregnant Ethiopian woman and her young son after they are are rescued at sea.

In a press conference earlier this week, Crialese slammed the migration policies of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government, in particular the so-called 'push-back' measures aimed at deporting migrants intercepted outside Italy's territorial waters.

The Venice Film Festival's prize for upcoming actors which is named in honour of late Italian star Marcello Mastroianni went to two Japanese teenagers, Shota Sometani and Fumi Nikaido.

The pair starred in Japanese director Sono Sion's Himizu, a violent tale set in the aftermath of March's earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan.

Read more about Venice