Chinese film triumphs at Venice fete

VENICE:  A poetic film about the effects of China's Three Gorges Dam on the lives of ordinary people, "Still Life" by Jia Zhang-ke, has won the Golden Lion for Best Film at the 63rd Venice Film Festival on Saturday, the jury announced at a gala finale.          

Helen Mirren won the Best Actress award for her role as Queen Elizabeth II in Stephen Frears' "The Queen", while Ben Affleck won the Best Actor prize for his portrayal of cinema's first Superman, George Reeves, in "Hollywoodland".        

"Still Life", also known by its Chinese title "Sanxia Haoren", was a last-minute "surprise film" added to the 11-day festival, and left more fancied high-budget movies in its wake.    

"I want to thank all the people who helped me to make this film. Thank you to the jury too," said the 36-year-old director, whose movie recounts the story of people who come back to a rural village during the upheaval caused by the giant construction project.         

A second film by Zhang-ke, "Dong", a documentary about workers building the giant project, featured in the festival's Horizons section.   

"I am proud to bring two films to Venice, a city surrounded by water, while my two films are stories inspired by water," he told reporters, saying his films celebrated "the culture of the river."   

"We were told there would be a surprise film included at the last moment," said jury president Catherine Deneuve. "The jury was surprised at the quality of the film that we saw."      

Deneuve in particular cited "the beauty of the scenography, the quality of the story. We were very touched, we were very surprised, we were very moved. I know that everyone hasn't seen the film yet, but it's a very, very special film."          

Spanish director Bigas Luna, Italy's Michele Placido, Korea's Park Chan-wook, Portuguese producer Paulo Branco, Russian actress Chulpan Khamatova, and Hollywood director Cameron Crowe comprised the rest of the jury.   

Veteran French director Alain Resnais, 84, was awarded the Silver Lion for Best Director for "Coeurs", his movie about loneliness and the search for happiness in snow-covered Paris.       

Resnais previously won a Golden Lion in 1961, and was recognised with the festival's lifetime achievement award in 1985.   

Popular Italian film "Nuovomondo" (The Golden Door) about a Sicilian family's emigration to the New World in the early 1900s, won a special "revelation" Silver Lion for 41-year-old Emanuele Crialese.          

The Jury Special Prize went to "Daratt" (Dry Season) a film about the aftermath of Chad's civil war by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, the first African movie to win a prize at a major international festival.       

"It's a historic day for Africa," said Haroun as he accepted the award.       

In a message to the festival from his home in Los Angeles, Affleck said he was "surprised, flattered and honoured" to receive the acting award for his role as the tragic Reeves, who died in mysterious circumstances in 1959.   

Affleck has previously starred in John Madden's Oscar-winning "Shakespeare in Love" and John Woo's "Paycheck". He co-wrote "Good Will Hunting" with fellow actor Matt Damon, winning an Academy Award.     

Mirren, 60, who was named a Dame of the British Empire by the Queen in 2003, has had a long career on stage and on the screen and received Oscar nominations for Robert Altman's "Gosford Park" and Nicholas Hytner's "The Madness of King George."   

"I'm just a bit of the DNA of the film," said the 60-year-old actress modestly, who said the movie's mother was screenwriter Peter Morgan and its father, Frears.       

Morgan also won the festival's Osella prize for Best Screenplay.         "Thank you Tony Blair for timing your political disintegration for the release of our film," said the writer.

"The Queen", the popular success of the 11-day festival, will be released in Britain on September 15.   

Spike Lee won the Documentary Prize in the festival's Horizons section for his four-hour examination of post-Katrina New Orleans "When The Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts."      

Another Chinese director, Liu Jie, took the prize in the Horizons fiction section for cutting-edge new film for "Courthouse on Horseback" (Mabei Shang de Fating), about ethnic minorities in China.         

French actress Isild le Besco won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor or Actress for her role in Benoit Jacquot's "L'intouchable".    

An Osella for Outstanding Technical Contribution went to Emmanuel Lubezki for his photography on Alfonso Cuaron's apocalyptic vision of a childless world in "Children of Men".