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words by Carol King

South Korean director Kim Ki-duk’s shock film ‘Pieta’ won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Kim’s movie divided critics when it was screened because of its violent depiction of the life of a brutal loan shark. Named after Michelangelo’s sculpture of the Virgin Mary cradling Christ in her lap, the film is a religious allegory and follows what happens when the debt-collector’s world changes dramatically with the arrival of a woman who claims to be his mother.

In an unusual acceptance speech for the Leone d’Oro (Golden Lion), Kim sang a song that he explained was one “Koreans sing when we are sad, when we feel alone, when we feel desperate, but also when we’re happy.”

American film director Paul Thomas Anderson had been the favourite to scoop the prestigious prize for ‘The Master’, a tale of a religious cult in the US inspired by Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard, and walked off with the second prize of the Leone d’Argento (Silver Lion) instead. But the movie’s leads, Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman were jointly awarded the award for best actor.

Headed by American director Michael Mann, the Venice jury selected Israeli Hadas Yaron for the best actress award for her performance in ‘Lemale Et Ha’Chalal’ (Fill the Void), a romantic comedy that examines life in Tel Aviv’s Orthodox Hasidic community.

In its 69th year, the Venice Film Festival was in need of a makeover and new artistic director Alberto Barbera had some success in his aim to deliver less glitz and more focus on emerging directors. His approach is reported to have won the approval of �������� President Giorgio Napolitano when he visited the festival and met with American actor and director Robert Redford to discuss the importance of independent cinema.

Barbera’s revamp proved less popular with �������� TV network TG 24, which is owned by former prime minister Silvio Berluconi. A news programme broadcast on TG 24 criticised the festival’s programme of “sapphic sex, violence and religion”, and suggested the event would benefit from an adults-only rating.