Samir Farid wraps up the 67th Venice Film Festival (1-11 September) where the Golden Lion went, as he puts it, to a modest American film Headed by Quentin Tarantino, the jury of the world's most prestigious film festival this year made by and large disappointing decisions, which differed hugely from the star rankings of the critics' poll. That included 11 Italian and 10 non-Italian critics, the present writer among them. In the official awards numerous masterpieces and important films went unnoticed. Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, which took the Golden Lion, is an intimately humane but nonetheless modest film. It does not compare with much official-competition fare, and of the 24 films competing the critics ranked it ninth, with only one critic giving it five stars. The Spanish director �lex de la Iglesia's Balada triste de trompeta received both the best director (Silver Lion) and best script prizes but the critics ranked it 17th and only one of them gave it five stars. It is a sensationalist evocation of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, technically competent but superficial and commercial film-like. The best actress prize went to Ariane Labed in the Greek film Attenberg by Athina Rachel Tsangari, which the critics ranked 19th; no critic gave it five stars. The film is an example of cinematic pretension, devoid of stylistic authenticity and depth of meaning; more to the point, Labed cannot by any standard be seen as the best actress in the competition which included sublime performances. Essential Killing by the great Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski deservedly won the Special jury prize and the best actor prize (which went to Vincent Gallo, whose own directorial contribution to the official competition, Promises Written on Water, a USA production, came equally deservedly last on the critics' list); Skolimowski's film was ranked fifth. Mikhail Krichman received the best cinematography prize for the Russian film Ovsyanki (Silent Souls) by Aleksei Fedorchenko, which was worthy of the Golden Lion; it was ranked first by the critics, and it remains ironic that the jury should have celebrated it only for its cinematography. Ovsyanki and Essential Killing are two pieces of pure cinematic poetry, and while the former is a classic poem about life, love and death, the latter is a modern poem on existence, the inevitability of killing for human survival. Fedorchenko expresses his vision through the all but extinct culture of a small group living on the border between Russia and Finland, while Skolimowski focuses on an Afghan fighter arrested by the American forces who, on his way to Guantanamo via a secret camp in central Europe, manages to escape into a forest where much of the action takes place. Also deservedly Mila Kunis won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor or Actress for her role in the Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan, another American film. Thus American film gleaned two and European six of the festival's eight prizes, none of which came from Italy which contributed four films or France which contributed three. Curatorial policy had pitted America against Europe as the first and second cinematic powers in the global arena, ignoring the third power, Asia, and the emerging power, Latin America. Not that a film festival should take geography into account -- it certainly should not have prioritised Italy as the host or France as Europe's principal cinematic cradle -- except that, among the Italian and French fare there were films worthy of the Golden Lion: Mario Martone's Noi Credevamo and Abdellatif Kechiche's Venus Noire. Competing in the official competition, too, was the Hong Kong director Wang Bing's The Ditch, whose screening was not announced until the opening of the festival, was a genuine surprise. Having directed some of the most important independent documentaries since 1999, in his debut fiction film Wang Bing condemns the practices of the Chinese Communist Party under Mao Zedong, a holy Chinese cow if ever there was one; it is the party has ruled China since 1948. Set in a Chinese reeducation camp for political dissidents in 1960s, the film reveals in an austere and cruel documentary style how these camps were desert outposts where the dissidents were left to die of hunger on purpose. As for the Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain's Post Mortem, the only Lantin American film in the competition, it is a record of the Pinochet putsch in 1973, which involved the killing of tens of thousands including the lawfully elected president Salvador Allende. Larrain was not born by the time the coup took place, and his approach to this horribly fascist episode of Latin American history is appropriately postmodern. Also worth mentioning is the American film Miral, the latest by the great international film artist Julian Schnable. In it he tells the story of Palestine since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948 and until the Oslo Accords in 1994. He tells the story through another story, that of Hind Al-Husseini, who founded Dar Al-Tifl, a civil institution for children, in 1948, and died in 1994. The film emphatically supports the rights of the Palestinian people, supporting the two state solution. *** Two Arab films were featured outside the official competition (the only two featured in any of the three major festivals this year, both independent, digitally made documentaries): the Egyptian Marianne Khoury and the Tunisian Mustafa Al-Hassnawi's Dhilal (Shadows); and the Lebanese filmmaker Maher Abi Samra's Kunna Shuyu'iyyin (We Were Communists). VENEZIA 67 Awards Golden Lion for Best Film: Somewhere by Sofia Coppola (USA) Silver Lion for Best Director: �lex de la Iglesia for the film Balada triste de trompeta (Spain, France) Special Jury Prize: Essential Killing by Jerzy Skolimowski (Poland, Norway, Hungary, Ireland) Coppa Volpi for Best Actor: Vincent Gallo in the film Essential Killing by Jerzy Skolimowski (Poland, Norway, Hungary, Ireland) Coppa Volpi for Best Actress: Ariane Labed in the film Attenberg by Athina Rachel Tsangari (Greece) Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor or Actress: Mila Kunis in the film Black Swan by Darren Aronofsky (USA) Osella for Best Cinematography: Mikhail Krichman for the film Ovsyanki ( Silent Souls ) by Aleksei Fedorchenko (Russia) Osella for Best Screenplay: �lex de la Iglesia for the film Balada triste de trompeta by �lex de la Iglesia (Spain, France) Special Lion: Monte Hellman 'Monte Hellman is a great cinema artist and minimalistic poet. His work has inspired this jury and it's our honour to honor him' ORIZZONTI Orizzonti Award (full-length films): Verano de Goliat by Nicolàs Pereda (Mexico, Canada) Orizzonti Special Jury Prize (full-length films): The Forgotten Space by Nöel Burch and Allan Sekula (Netherlands, Austria) Orizzonti Award (medium-length films): Tse ( Out ) by Roee Rosen (Israel) Orizzonti Award (short films): Coming Attractions by Peter Tscherkassky (Austria) Special Mention: Jean Gentil by Laura Amelia Guzmàn and Israel Càrdenas (Dominican Republic, Mexico, Germany) The Jury, after viewing the 21 European short films in the Orizzonti competition, has decided the Venice Short Film Nominee for the European Film Awards: The External World by David Oreilly (Germany) CONTROCAMPO ITALIANO Controcampo Italiano Award: 20 sigarette by Aureliano Amadei (Italy) Special Mention: Vinicio Marchioni in the film 20 sigarette LION OF THE FUTURE - "LUIGI DE LAURENTIIS" VENICE AWARD FOR A DEBUT FILM Cogunluk ( Majority ) by SerenYèce(Turkey) - Giornate degli Autori - Venice Days as well as a prize of 100,000 USD donated by Filmauro di Aurelio e Luigi De Laurentiis to be divided equally between director and producer PERSOL 3-D AWARD FOR THE MOST CREATIVE 3-D FILM STEREOSCOPIC FILM OF THE YEAR: Avatar by James Cameron (USA, UK) How to Train Your Dragon by Chris Sanders and Dean Deblois (USA) JAEGER-LECOULTRE GLORY TO THE FILMMAKER AWARD 2010: Mani Ratnam Premio L'Oréal Paris per il Cinema: Vittoria Puccini Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement John Woo
