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Stormy awards sees Greek Academy blast government.

Argyris Papadimitropoulos’s (Wasted Youth) drama Suntan was the big winner at the Iris Hellenic Film Academy Awards on Tuesday evening (March 21) winning six prizes out of the 11 for which it was nominated including best film and director.

The film, which played in the Rotterdam, Brussels, Edinburgh, SXSW, Odessa and Jeonju festivals, was also awarded best screenplay, best actor for Makis Padimitriou and best supporting actress for Elli Tringou.

The Faliro House, Marni and Oxymoron production is a bitter sweet drama about a middle-aged doctor on a Greek island whose life turns upside down when he gets embroiled with a group of hedonist tourists.

The film is widely tipped to be Greece’s submission in the best foreign language category at next year’s Oscars.

World sales are handled by Us outlet Visit Films. Strand Releasing is the Us distributor.

Also winning awards was Tasos Boulmetis’ coming of age story...

Stormy awards sees Greek Academy blast government.

Argyris Papadimitropoulos’s (Wasted Youth) drama Suntan swept the Iris Hellenic Film Academy Awards on Tuesday evening (March 21) winning six prizes out of the 11 for which it was nominated including best film and director.

The film, which played in the Rotterdam, Brussels, Edinburgh, SXSW, Odessa and Jeonju festivals, was also awarded best screenplay, best actor for Makis Padimitriou and best supporting actress for Elli Tringou.

The Faliro House, Marni and Oxymoron production is a bitter sweet drama about a middle-aged doctor on a Greek island whose life turns upside down when he gets embroiled with a group of hedonist tourists.

The film is widely tipped to be Greece’s submission in the best foreign language category at next year’s Oscars.

World sales are handled by Us outlet Visit Films. Strand Releasing is the Us distributor.

Also winning awards was Tasos Boulmetis’ coming of age story Mythopathy, which won three...

Apparent normalcy shattered by a sudden death becomes the starting point for one to decipher the malign force that controls the lives of the members of a Greek family. Concealing crucial information about the family mechanics, director Alexandros Avranas uses a calculated pace to explore manipulation, authority, and compliance. In his film, evil doesn’t have a single face, but instead becomes a shared responsibility. Cautiously revealing its secrets with utmost precision, “Miss Violence” is a brilliantly perverse work that is sure to shock and leave a lasting, unsettling, impression. The film has received numerous awards in its homeland, as well as in Stockholm, Venice, Montreal, and most recently at the Los Angeles Greek Film festival.

Avranas talked to us from Greece and shared the stories behind the making of this marvelously intriguing film.

Carlos Aguilar: This is such an impressively unsettling and successfully cryptic story, what’s its genesis?

Alexandros Avranas: It’s based on a real story that happened in Germany in 2011. I heard it from a friend in Berlin, and then I did some research and I found out even more things. Then I wrote the script and, of course, some elements are not taken directly from that story, but the concept is based on true events.

Aguilar: You chose to start the film with a very shocking opening sequence, and then we spend the rest of the film looking for the reasons behind that event. Why did you decide to start the film in that way?

Alexandros Avranas: Firs of all, what happens in that opening sequence is the first thing I heard about the story. I was very shocked and touched. I decided to open the film in this manner so that audiences can something to encourage them to explore this family and this situation. It was very risky to start with something so shocking and powerful because it would have made it very easy for the film to turn out flat the rest of the time. When you start with the crescendo it is not easy to keep that going the whole time. But I think the reasons behind it were right, and that’s why it worked here.

Aguilar: There is a lot of concealment in your film. We don’t know the names of these people or who plays what role within the family. Did you want the audience to know as little as possible for a large portion of the film?

Alexandros Avranas: There is a big difference between European and American cinema. Sometime we start from a point in which you don’t know anything and you don’t understand anything. If they don’t know anything, you can create a specific way for the viewer to think about the film. From there they can start understanding or try to find out what’s going on. At the beginning you don’t fully understand the family mechanics and their relationships to each other. It’s so complicated but at the same time is really easy. This encourages the viewer to develop a particular way of thinking about this film.

Aguilar: One of the strongest characters here is the father played by Themis Panou. He spearheads the film and really plays a big role on how the other characters interact with each other. How difficult was it to write and then cast this character?

Alexandros Avranas: When I was casting this role I knew I wanted someone that was elusive. Before winning the Hellenic Academy Award for this role, Themis was not a very well known actor. He would often act in supporting roles. I tried to use this feeling or quality of never being the protagonist to enhance the character. Since he had never been the protagonist, it would be interesting for him to be the protagonist, or the lead, in this family. It was almost like a game. For me, this wasn’t the most difficult role to write or cast because the whole thing is based that part of his personal story. The character himself has a lot of things to work with. He is hiding behind his actions. Other roles in the film were more difficult to develop.

Aguilar: Family remains normal in the face of the horrific things that happen around them. Where does this strange and unfitting normalcy come from?

Alexandros Avranas: Family is the first society we are part of. The way we exist or act within our family is the same way we relate to the larger outside society. Family shapes your point of view on things. Therefore, these people believe that all these things that happen in their family are normal and they thing that they happen out of love. They believe they are showing love to each other because they don’t really know what love is.

Aguilar: The father is the one in charge and who should be blame for all the terrible crimes committed. However, no one ever really challenges his authority. Are they all to blame for what goes on in the family?

Alexandros Avranas: He started it, but the mother is also someone else that could be blamed for it. She knows what’s happening and she has never spoken out about it. Eventually, she decides to do something against it, but it’s too late. In the real story she never when against him or spoke out about it. She went to prison for 15 years because she never said, “Yes he did it.” On the other hand, even if she had said that, she would have still gone to prison because she knew. In the film there is the same motive and situation. The mother knows but never speaks out. I also think the film questions when does the victim stops being the victim and starts being a perpetrator? This is something the viewer must answer for himself. What are the boundaries or limits between a victim and a perpetrator? Eleni (Eleni Roussinou)is a victim of course, but she also becomes the perpetrator for the younger sister. It is very complicated.

Aguilar: What was your approach to working with the young actors? How much did they know about the matter at hand?

Alexandros Avranas: For this film we rehearse a lot. With the main actors we rehearsed for almost a year, and for the young children I took a long time to cast them, probably around six months. When I found them, I spoke to them as if they were young adults and not children. I told them the truth, everything about the script. Their parents were also very supportive. It was not so difficult to get what I wanted because when I cast somebody it means I believe they have something in them that related to the character and I’m trying to get it out. They don’t really have to act, they have to be themselves and I place them in the correct situations for the film.

Aguilar: What inspired you to make the film when you heard the original story? Was it the secret and how shocking it was? Or was it the story behind the story?

Alexandros Avranas: Making the film meant taking a very big risk because the subject is very sensitive, and I didn’t want to make the film to simply shock people. If you compare the film with the real story, the film is very soft. It is nothing compared to what really happened. It was very difficult for me and for the actors because it is not a happy story at all. For me the most interesting part was to explore what happened in this small society, as well as the symbolism behind is as a reflection of our current society. Since we don’t live in a time when the enemy was very clear in the form of wars or dictatorships, this is my way to criticize our society, not only Greek society, but all of Europe. The crisis is not only Greek, is European. The moral crisis is everywhere. It was very important for me to get across the political meaning behind the film: a leader in a society and why people don’t do anything against him. Why do people in this society still trust him to be a leader?

Aguilar: Would you say your film fits within what’s been deemed “the Greek weird wave”, alongside films like “Dogtooth” or Attenberg”?

Alexandros Avranas: As a Greek director I’m very happy that Greek cinema is very strong right now, but I don’t believe there is a wave. No one really talks about it like the French Nouvelle Vague or Dogma. Those were groups of people that shared similar philosophical or aesthetic beliefs. We don’t even know each other. Lanthimos and Tsangari are friends, but I don’t know them. I’ve said hello to Lanthimos before but I’ve never met Tsangari. This is why we can’t call it a “wave,” because we don’t have anything in common. Maybe the one thing we do have in common is that we are young people that want to make films and speak out about what’s going on. That’s the only commonality I can see.

Aguilar: Perhaps one of the most powerful images in your film is when see the family standing around the dead body, why would you say that’s the most symbolic image in your film?

Alexandros Avranas: That image - which is on the film’s poster - is very symbolic because, just like the film, the poster doesn’t lie but it doesn’t tell you the whole truth. When you see the poster you get the feeling of the film because you cans see that something happened but you don’t know what exactly happened. There was a murdered, but you don’t know who has been murdered. You see the truth, but you must find out many other things. I think this is how society and politics work as well. We sort of know where they start but we don’t know exactly how they work. I think in a sense the film reflects how political systems function in our time. We don’t know everything.

Aguilar: Why “Miss Violence”?

Alexandros Avranas: It was very difficult to find the right title. The film is not only about abuse, or family, or about politics. Every title I had in mind made the film sound very closed, and I think the film is very open in many levels. The title is sort of a play on words. “Miss Violence” could be taken from the sentence “I miss violence,” someone is missing violence. But it also has to do with the fact that in the story the protagonist is the father, a male, but the film is really about the women. “Miss Violence” could refer to a female. It is not about women who perpetrate the violence, but those who are the victims of violence.

Aguilar: How has the film been received outside of Greece? Is it too difficult for people to take in?

Alexandros Avranas: I was in Toronto, New York, and many other European countries and I witnessed how controversial the film is. Half of the viewers loved the film, and the other half doesn’t want to believe these things happen. They prefer to close their eyes to things like these. Society works like this in regards to many other matters. This is why some things are taboo. We know about them but we prefer not to talk about them. But for the most part I’ve always felt it has been very well received. It is a heavy film, and it was very heavy for us to make, but it’s an honest film. It tells the truth.

★☆☆☆☆"We don't have secrets in this family," Themis Panou's repulsive pater familias - who bears an uncanny resemblance to Donald Pleasance - states in Alexandros Avranas' Miss Violence (2013), the baffling winner of several awards at last year's 70th Venice Film Festival. However, when it comes to families in this kind of drama, nothing could be further from the truth. It's Angeliki's (Chloe Bolota) eleventh birthday party and her family gathers to eat cake in their antiseptic, middle-class apartment. The eldest daughter has news that she's pregnant - which she whispers to her mother - and food is put on the table. However, Angeliki mounts the balcony railing while no one is looking and plunges to her death.

Deeply unnerving, yet it borders on a salacious exploitation of the everyday horrors it means to condemn. I’m “biast” (pro): nothing

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

In a sterile gray apartment in an unnamed Greek city, a family is celebrating a child’s birthday. After the cake for newly 11-year-old Angeliki (Chloe Bolota), the girl, still in her pretty white party dress, calmly walks out onto the balcony, climbs over the railing, and jumps to her death on the concrete many floors below. What would prompt a child to do such a thing? What would cause her family to react by hardly reacting at all? Screenwriter (with Kostas Peroulis) and director Alexandros Avranas only parsimoniously doles out information about those Angeliki has left behind, and in a way that leads our imaginations nowhere but in horrific directions. Why...

While celebrating her birthday, a smiling eleven-year-old girl quietly detaches herself from the party... and throws herself to her death from the balcony. Despite the consistent probing of the police and social services, her family - headed by softly-spoken pater familias (Themis Panou) - deny her death was anything more than an accident and continue to live their lives in their Athens apartment seemingly oblivious to the tragedy.

On her 11th birthday, Angeliki (Chloe Bolota) plunges four stories to her death to the foreboding soundtrack of Leonard Cohen's "Dance Me to the End of Love" leaving her highly dysfunctional Greek family to pretend that everything is hunky dory in their household. Just as the minutely detailed and perfectly framed cinematography (Olympia Mitilinaiou) solicits a milieu of falseness, the clan's middle-aged patriarch (Themis Panou) -- referred to as "Father" by the multi-generational household -- is all about keeping up appearances. Child Protection definitely senses that something is amiss, especially since no one in the family seems to know the identity of the father of the deceased child, or the other young children in the household -- Myrto (Sissy Toumasi), Filippos (Konstantinos Athanasiades) and Alkmini (Kalliopi Zontanou). All of the familiar relationships are blurred to curious extremes, though we are left to assume that Eleni (Eleni Roussinou) is the mother of all (or,...

Two veterans and a newcomer shared the top honours at the Hellenic Film Academy (Hfa) awards.Scroll down for full list of winners

Pantelis Voulgaris’ Little England (Mikra Anglia) won best film while Yiorgos Tsemberopoulos’ The Enemy Within (O ehthros mou) won best director at the fifth edition of the awards on Monday evening.

Newcomer Elina Psikou was named best first time director for The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas (I aionia epistrofi tou Antoni Paraskeva).

Little England was produced by Katerina Helioti and Yiannis Iakovidis for Mikra Anglia Productions in co-production with among others Black Orange and Ote TV.

Set on the island of Andros in the 1930s and 1940s, the film is based on the bestselling novel by Voulgaris’ wife, Ioanna Karistiani. It centres how the community copes while the men of the island spend long absences on ships around the world.

The €1.5m budget was entirely financed by Andros shipowner Spyros Polemis and is...

Exclusive: UK distributor takes Elle Driver’s provocative, award-winning Venice drama.

Metrodome has taken UK rights to Alexandros Avranas’ Venice drama Miss Violence from Elle Driver.

The unsettling Greek drama, about an abusive father’s devious sexual, physical and psychological control over the rest of his family, won the Best Director and Best Actor awards at the festival.

Themis Panou, who plays the father, won Venice’s Volpi Cup.

Review: Miss Violence

The deal was negotiated by Adeline Fontan Tessaur for Elle Driver and Metrodome’s head of acquisitions, Giles Edwards.

Edwards said: “This provocative, brilliant and ferociously uncompromising film is a genuine masterpiece of directorial control, featuring a series of impeccable, fearless and often astonishing performances and was justifiably rewarded at Venice this year.

“With the candor and skill of world-class storytellers like Michael Haneke and Giorgos Lanthimos, director Alexandros Avranas gives voice to the dark unspoken fears of victims too often silenced by monstrous villains...

It's farewell for another year to mosquitos, vaporettos and incomprehensibly rude Italian film critics who insist on checking their email mid-screening, because the 70th Venice Film Festival wrapped up on Saturday. For a festival that had seen quite a few twists and turns, it felt appropriate that it ended with Bernardo Bertolucci pulling a few surprises, shunning the more lauded films in the line-up to bestow the Golden Lion on "Sacro Gra," the first Italian film to win the top prize in fifteen years and the first documentary to ever manage the feat. Elsewhere, Greek film "Miss Violence" also proved popular, taking both the Silver Lion and the Best Actor prize for Themis Panou, while Tsai Ming-Liang's "Stray Dogs" won the Grand Jury Prize, Elena Cotta took Best Actress for "Via Castellana Bandiera" (which we unfortunately didn't see), Tye Sheridan was awarded Best Young Actor for David Gordon Green's "Joe,...

While I struggle to keep up at Tiff (good lord what a learning curve) the Venice Film Festival wrapped up and announced its awards. We didn't share them in a timely fashion. My apologies. The winners were...

Stray Dogs

 

Golden Lion: Sacro Gra (Gianfranco Rosi)

This surprise winner is a documentary about a famous highway in Rome. Sometimes non-sexy subject matter translates into great films.

Grand Jury Prize: Stray Dogs (Tsai Ming-liang)

From the sounds of twitter this was the sensation of the festival though it doesn't screen at Tiff until after I leave town. *snifffle*

Silver Lion (Best Director): Alexandros Avranas, Miss Violence

Best Actor: Themis Panou, Miss Violence

I have a terrible habit of skipping films which then become winners at festivals. This is also playing Toronto but descriptions make it sound like a Greek version of The Virgin Suicides and I didn't bite. In hindsight and...

An Italian documentary about the Grande Raccordo Anulare ring road in Rome has won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Sacro Gra from director Gianfranco Rosi is the first documentary to ever win the prestigious Golden Lion. It is also the first Italian film to win the Golden Lion for 15 years.

Rosi called it "an incredible honour" to win the award, saying: "I didn't expect to win such an important prize with a documentary. It was truly an act of courage, a barrier has been broken."

Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope won the 'Best Screenplay' award for the film Philomena, starring Coogan and Dame Judi Dench.

Italian star Elena Cotta won the 'Best Actress' prize for A Street in Palermo, despite not having any spoken lines in the film.

The Silver Lion for 'Best Director' was given to Greece's Alexandros Avranas for Miss Violence, while the film's Themis Panou won 'Best Actor'.

Sacro Gra, a documentary about life on Roman highway by director Gianfranco Rosi, won the Golden Lion for best film at the world’s oldest film festival in Venice Saturday. It was the first time an Italian film has won there in 15 years and the first documentary to ever win the Golden Lion. The Silver Lion for best director went to Alexandros Avranas for his nightmarish family dysfunction drama, Miss Violence; Themis Panou won the best actor prize for his leading role in the same film. The newly-created jury prize went to Tsai Ming-liang‘s Stray Dogs, about a father and two children living on the...

In Competition

Golden Lion – Sacro Gra, directed by Gianfranco Rosi

Silver Lion (Best Director) – Alexandros Avranas, Miss Violence

Grand Jury Prize – Stray Dogs, directed by Tsai Ming-liang

Special Jury Prize – The Police Officer's Wife, directed by Philip Gröning

Volpi Cup for Best Actor – Themis Panou, Miss Violence

Volpi Cup for Best Actress – Elena Cotta, A Street in Palermo

Best Screenplay – Philomena, written by Steve Coogan & Jeff Pope

Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor or Actress – Tye Sheridan, Joe

Horizons (Orizzonti)

Orizzonti Award for Best Film – Eastern Boys, directed by Robin Campillo

Orizzonti Award for Best Director – Uberto Pasolini, Still Life

Special Orizzonti Jury Prize – Ruin, directed by Michael Cody & Amiel Courtin-Wilson

Special Orizzonti Prize for Innovative Content – Fish & Cat, directed by Shahram Mokri

Lion of the Future Award

Best Debut Film – White Shadow, directed by Noaz Deshe

Fipresci

Competition Fipresci Prize – Tom at the Farm, directed by Xavier Dolan...

A still from Kush

Shubhashish Bhutiani’s short film Kush, the lone Indian entry at the Venice Film Festival, has won the Orizzonti Award for Best Short Film.

Orizzonti section of the Venice Film Festival showcases new trends in world cinema. The Orizzonti Jury was chaired by Paul Schrader and composed of Catherine Corsini, Leonardo Di Costanzo, Golshifteh Farahani, Frédéric Fonteyne, Kseniya Rappoport and Amr Waked.

Kush featuring Sonika Chopra, Shayaan Sameer and Anil Sharma is inspired by a true story : In 1984, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards, causing anti-Sikh riots to erupt throughout the country. A teacher travelling back from a field trip with her class of 10-year-old students struggles to protect Kush, the only Sikh student in the class, from the growing violence around him.

Bhutiani recently graduated from School of Visual Arts (Sva) in New York.

List Of Awards:

Golden...

The Venice Golden Lion returned to the host country after fifteen years this evening with Gianfranco Rosi's biography of a Rome ring road, Sacro Gra, picking up the festival's top prize. Renowned director Bernardo Bertolucci and his jury plumped for high arthouse cinema over the more crowd-pleasing fare of Stephen Frears' British offering Philomena, which had to make do with the award for Best Screenplay. Best Actor and Best Director went respectively to Themis Panou and Alexandros Avranas for Greek family abuse drama Miss Violence. Although the film (for this reviewer at least) is an exploitative, nasty piece of work, it's undeniably well-directed, and Panou is utterly brilliant as the chilling pater familias.

The Grand Jury Prize was reserved for Tsai Ming-liang's dark horse Stray Dogs which, with its ten-minute long takes of people staring at walls and eating cabbages, could well be a test case for cinephile seriousness.

Sacro Gra, a documentary about the people who live and work around Rome’s ring road, took home the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival Saturday.

Sacro Gra, directed by Gianfranco Rossi, is the first documentary to ever win the prize, and is the first Italian film to be recognized at the highest level since 1998 when Gianni Amelio’s The Way We Laughed won. Founded in 1932, the Venice Film Festival has historically excluded non-fiction films from the competition. This was the first year they were eligible for consideration.

Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang’s family drama Stray Dogs won the Grand Jury Prize,...

Surprise choice for Golden Lion is Italian documentary. Silver Lion for best director goes to Alexandros Avranas for Miss Violence.

The surprise winner of the Venice Golden Lion is Gianfranco Rosi’s Italian documentary Sacro Gra, about life on the highway that surrounds Rome.

It marks the first time a documentary has ever won the Golden Lion.

Greek film Miss Violence had a strong showing winning both best director for Alexandros Avranas and best actor for Themis Panou.

Review: Sacro Grareview: Miss Violence

The Venezia 70 Jury, chaired by Bernardo Bertolucci and comprised of Andrea Arnold, Renato Berta, Carrie Fisher, Martina Gedeck, Jiang Wen, Pablo Larraín, Virginie Ledoyen, Ryuichi Sakamoto has awarded the following prizes:

Main Competition Awards

Golden Lion for Best Film

Sacro Gra, Gianfranco Rosi (Italy, France)

Silver Lion for Best Director

Alexandros Avranas, Miss Violence (Greece)

Grand Jury Prize

Jiaoyou, Tsai Ming-liang (Chinese Taipei, France)Best Actor: Themis Panou, Miss ViolenceBest...

Surprise choice for Golden Lion is Italian documentary. Silver Lion for best director goes to Alexandros Avranas for Miss Violence.

The surprise winner of the Venice Golden Lion is Gianfranco Rosi’s Italian documentary Sacro Gra, about life on the highway that surrounds Rome.

Greek film Miss Violence had a strong showing winning both best director for Alexandros Avranas and best actor for Themis Panou.

The Venezia 70 Jury, chaired by Bernardo Bertolucci and comprised of Andrea Arnold, Renato Berta, Carrie Fisher, Martina Gedeck, Jiang Wen, Pablo Larraín, Virginie Ledoyen, Ryuichi Sakamoto has awarded the following prizes

Main Competition Awards

Golden Lion for Best Film

Sacro Gra by Gianfranco Rosi (Italy, France)

Silver Lion for Best Director

Alexandros Avranas for Miss Violence (Greece)

Grand Jury Prize

Jiaoyou by Tsai Ming-liang (Chinese Taipei, France)

Coppa Volpi for Best Actor

Themis Panou in Miss Violence

Coppa Volpi for Best Actress

Elena Cotta inVIA Castellana Bandiera by Emma Dante (Italy, Switzerland...

The 70th Venice Film Festival wrapped this weekend with the top prize of the Golden Lion going to Gianfranco Rosi's documentary "Sacro Gra".

The Venice fest awards are unique in that, only in exceptional cases, can a film win more than one prize. On top of that, whoever wins the Golden Lion can only win that award.

An exceptional case was seen with "Miss Violence" which took the Best Director (Alexandros Avranas) and Best Actor (Themis Panou) honors. Elena Cotta won Best Actress for "Via Castellana Bandiera".

Tsai Ming-liang's "Stray Dogs" took the newly added Grand Jury Prize, while Philip Groning's "The Police Officer’s Wife" won a Special Jury Prize.

Rising young "Mud" star Tye Sheridan took Best New Young Actor/Actress for "Joe," and comedian Steve Coogan along with Jeff Pope took best screenplay for "Philomena".

Earlier, the critics week "Lion of the Future" award for debut...

"Sacro Gra" – a little known Italian documentary about the ring road around Rome – pulled off a shocking upset to snag the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival. Underdogs also prevailed in many other top races: Golden Lion: "Sacro Gra," Gianfranco Rosi Grand Jury Prize: "Stray Dogs," Tsai Ming-liang Silver Lion (Best Director): "Miss Violence," Alexandros Avranas Best Actor: Themis Panou, "Miss Violence" Best Actress: Elena Cotta, "A Street in Palermo" Marcello Mastroianni Award (Best Young Actor): Tye Sheridan, "Joe" -Break- Best Screenplay: Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope, "Philomena" Special Jury Prize: "The Police Officer's Wife," Phillip Groning Luigi de Laurentiis Award (Best Debut Feature): "White Shadow," Noaz Deshe Horizons Awards Best Film: "Eastern Boys," Robin Campillo Best Director:...

The 70th Venice Film Festival is a wrap and the award-winners have been announced.  While showcasing some of the world's top talent, the festival also serves to illustrate just how out of touch I am personally with the global cinematic world.  While the overall award for Best Film (the Golden Lion) went to Gianfranco Rosi's Sacro Gra, a couple of other notable names made the list: Tye Sheridan earned the Best Young Actor award for his work in David Gordon Green's Joe, and Gabe Klinger's Double Play: James Benning and Richard Linklater won the Best Documentary on Cinema award.  Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope earned the Best Screenplay Award for Stephen Frears' Philomena. Hit the jump to view all the winners. Here's the full list of winners from the 70th Venice Film Festival: The Awards at the 70th Venice Film Festival Venezia 70 The Venezia 70 Jury, chaired...

Italian director Gianfranco Rosi's documentary “Sacro Gra” is the winner of the 70th Venice Film Festival. The movie is about the ring road around Rome. See the full list of official Venice competition award-winners below. International Competition Golden Lion “Sacro Gra” (Gianfranco Rosi, Italy) Silver Lion “Miss Violence” (Alexandros Avranas, Greece) Jury Grand Prize “Stray Dogs” Tsai Ming Liang (Chinese Taipei) Special Jury Prize “The Police Officer’s Wife” (Philip Groneing, Germany) Actor Themis Panou (“Miss Violence, Greece”) Actress Elena Cotta (“A Street in Palermo,” Italy) Marcello Mastroianni Prize For Young Performer Tye Sheridan (Joe, David Gordon Green, U.S.) Best Screenplay Steve Coogan, Jeff Pope (Philomena, U.K.) Luigi De Laurentiis Lion Of The Future “White Shadow” (Noaz Deshe, Italy, Germany, Tanzania)...

In the first year that documentaries were included in the Venice Film Festival’s main competition, one won it all — “Sacro Gra,” which studies life on the highway that encircles Rome, took the Golden Lion at the 70th annual fest. Italian director in Gianfranco Rosi (above) accepted the award at Saturday’s ceremony. Alexandros Avranas of Greece won the Silver Lion — the best-director prize — for “Miss Violence,” the disturbing story of a sexually abusive grandfather. Greek actor Themis Panou won the best actor prize for the film. Italian actress Elena Cotta won best actress for her role in “A Street in Palermo,...

The 70th annual Venice International Film Festival closed today with an awards ceremony that honored "Joe" and "Philomena" -- but shut out "Night Moves" and "Under The Skin." The full list of winners follows. Read More: The 70th Venice Film Festival is a Historic Mess -- and Still a Thing of Beauty Official Competition Golden Lion - "Sacro Gra," directed by Gianfranco Rosi Grand Jury Prize - "Stray Dogs," directed by Tsai Ming-liang Silver Lion (Best Director) - Alexandros Avranas, "Miss Violence" Volpi Cup (Best Actor) - Themis Panou, "Miss Violence" Volpi Cup (Best Actress) - Elena Cotta, "Via Castellana Bandiera" Marcello Mastroianni Award (Best New Young Actor or Actress) - Tye Sheridan, "Joe" Best Screenplay - Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope, "Philomena" Special Jury Prize - "The Police Officer’s Wife," directed by Philip Groning Critics Week Lion of the Future –...