AFP-BNS

The Venice Film Festival’s top prize was awarded on Saturday to a Danish drama about a woman trying to conceal her relationship with a Nazi during the war.

It was the only feature film in competition directed by a woman.

“Woman Unknown” sparked considerable discussion because of its storyline, which explores a subject rarely addressed on the big screen, and because its director, May el Toukhy, was one of only a handful of female directors at the Venice Film Festival.

Apart from her, among the 21 films competing for awards at Venice’s star-studded closing ceremony, there was only one other female filmmaker — Israeli director Rachel Szor, one of the creators of the harrowing documentary “NAZA” about Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip.

“‘Woman Unknown’ is about the female body as a battlefield and a public matter. At the same time, this film tells the story of women who are invisible, overlooked and voiceless,” el Toukhy said at the ceremony.

This year’s jury president, US actress and director Maggie Gyllenhaal, raised the issue of the lack of films directed by women on the festival’s opening day, but declined to discuss the subject further at the closing press conference.

“I think I’m tired of talking about the same subject over and over again,” she said. “I just want to celebrate a masterfully made film that struck me like a laser beam.”

Other winners

Saturday’s awards ceremony brought the 10-day festival to a close after an often dark and unsettling programme. Festival director Alberto Barbera had promised that it would reflect the state of a world torn by war and filled with anxiety.

Second place and the Silver Lion went to “Possible Love,” a sensitive study of relationships by South Korean auteur Lee Chang-dong. The film was one of the best-reviewed entries at the festival.

The Best Director award went to Russian-born Ilya Khrzhanovsky for his vast, rebellious and experimental film project “DAU,” which tells the story of the complicated life of Lev Landau, the father of the Soviet nuclear programme.

The film, which runs for more than three hours, began production two decades ago. Some 2,000 people took part in the project, many of them actors who spent months living as their characters in a fully reconstructed secret Soviet research institute while Khrzhanovsky filmed them.

“Not everyone believed the film would be completed, but I always did,” he told the audience, dedicating the award to the people of Ukraine, “who are fighting for their freedom in this terrible war.”

The Best Actor award went to John Malkovich for his portrayal of a weary CIA agent in the black comedy “Wild Horse Nine.” The film follows him and a colleague as they travel to Chile’s Easter Island for a break shortly before the US-backed military coup of 1973.

Film magazine “Variety” wrote that Malkovich was generating “awards buzz” and predicted that the performance could earn him his first Best Actor Oscar at the next awards ceremony.

Danish actress Mathilde Arcel was named Best Actress. It was her first film role — in “Woman Unknown,” she plays a bride-to-be desperately trying to hide the shame of her past relationship with a Nazi.

The 30-year-old actress told AFP in Venice that she does not like fame or celebrity, but Gyllenhaal predicted even greater success for her.

“I think she is just going to blow us away,” Gyllenhaal told reporters.

Film about the Gaza Strip

“NAZA,” made by Oscar-winning Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, had been tipped by some critics as a contender for the festival’s top prize after receiving a record 25-minute standing ovation following its premiere on Thursday.

Instead, the film received the Special Jury Prize, an award presented each year by the jury to an outstanding work.

In their 80-minute film, Abraham and Szor interviewed 24 informants from the Israeli military or intelligence services. They described how artificial intelligence-based targeting systems used in the bombing of the Gaza Strip had resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians.

“The Israeli intelligence officers we spoke to told us that this mass killing is systematic: it is not accidental, but planned, and these killings and policies are based on the complete dehumanisation of Palestinians,” Abraham told the audience.

Film magazine “Screen” described the film as shocking, while “The Hollywood Reporter” said it provoked “outrage and, undoubtedly, the deepest disgust at the current Israeli regime.”

The Israeli military criticised the film’s use of anonymous testimony, saying on Friday that the identities of the informants “cannot be verified.”

Israel denies deliberately targeting civilians.