India Wins Best Film at Venice Festival

Mira Nair’s vision of an elaborate wedding in India won top honors Saturday at the Venice Film Festival, with “Monsoon Wedding” winning the Golden Lion award for best film.

“L’Emploi du Temps” (The Use of Time), by French director Laurent Cantet, a true story of a man who resorts to murder to keep up a fictitious life he has created for himself, won the night’s second Lion in the new competition category of Cinema of the Present.

Nair’s “Monsoon Wedding,” a favorite at the Cannes Film Festival as well, depicts a colorful and musical wedding in India’s Punjab state. The film was shot in a month with hand-held cameras.

“This one is for India, my beloved India, my continuing inspiration,” Nair told the audience. She called the film “nothing but a testament to life.”

The 58th annual Venice festival’s Grand Jury Prize went to “Hundstage” by Ulrich Seidl. Iranian director Babak Payami won best director for the Iranian-Italian production “Secret Ballots.”

The jury awarded Alfonso Cuaron best screenplay for “Y tu Mama Tambien,” (And Your Mother Too), a box office hit in Mexico about friendship and sensuality.

Italian actors picked up awards in the best actor and actress categories.

Luigi Lo Cascio won for “Luce dei miei Occhi” (Light of My Eyes), about a lonely young man and his obsession with a single mother.

Best actress went to Sandra Ceccarelli for her role in the same film by Giuseppe Piccioni, whose last film, “Not of This World,” was Italy’s 1999 foreign Oscar candidate.

The Marcello Mastroianni prize for best young actor or actress went to Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna for “Y tu Mama Tambien.”

A special Lion award for a first film went to director Jan Cvitkovic of Slovenia, for “Kruh in Mleko.”