The China Mail - Almodovar wins top prize at Venice film festival

This was Almodovar's first English-language feature, and his Golden Lion comes five years after he won a career achievement award at the festival. The film stars Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore.

Kidman won her award playing a lusty, unfulfilled CEO embarking on a torrid affair with an intern in "Babygirl". But she was unable to collect her award following the sudden death of her mother.

"The collision of life and art is heartbreaking and my heart is broken," said the Australian actress in a statement read on her behalf by the film's Dutch director, Halina Reijn.

"I'm in shock, and I have to go to my family. But this award is for her. She shaped me, she guided me, and she made me," she said.

French veteran actor Vincent Lindon won the festival's best actor award for "The Quiet Son."

Over his 40-year-career, the Cannes-winning Lindon has often gravitated towards films with social themes, playing flawed working-class men roused to fight injustices.

- Star-studded festival -

The winners were among 21 contenders vying for the top prize in a 10-day festival that swarmed with top Hollywood talent, from Angelina Jolie to George Clooney.

Venice's red carpet this season had seen the likes of Lady Gaga, starring with Joaquin Phoenix in the sequel to Todd Phillips' antihero "Joker" film, as well as George Clooney and Brad Pitt, whose action comedy "Wolfs" premiered out of competition.

Another film that was well received was "Queer" -- an adaptation directed by Italy's Luca Guadagnino of the short novel by Beat Generation writer William Burroughs -- that starred Daniel Craig.

The former James Bond actor is already being predicted as an Oscar contender for his role as William Lee, a lonely, heavy-drinking gay writer in 1940s Mexico City, whose unrequited love for a young man sends him on an anguished and drug-fuelled road trip through South America.

"The Brutalist" starring Oscar-winner Adrien Brody playing a Hungarian Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor, Laszlo Tothalso, also got good reviews.

- Voices heard -

The films at this year's festival did not shy away from difficult subject matter, whether contemporary or historical.

Abortion ("April"), white supremacy ("The Order"), the Mafia ("Sicilian Letters") and enforced disappearances and killings during Brazil's military dictatorship ("I'm Still Here") were all examined in the films competing for the Golden Lion.

Several films explored war and its crushing repercussions, whether documentaries on the war in Ukraine or the conflict between Israel and Palestinians, while two Italian features centred on the two World Wars of the last century.

Among the most remarkable was "Russians at War" from Russian-Canadian filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova, who went behind the lines of the Ukraine war with Russian soldiers.

"Russian soldiers are not someone whose voices are heard," Trofimova told journalists.

"This is my attempt to see through the fog of war and to see people as people."

The festival also honoured American actress Sigourney Weaver and Australian director Peter Weir with lifetime achievement awards.

C.Mak--ThChM