2010 Venice festival awash with top films

When many of the year’s most anticipated films failed to appear at Cannes, observers speculated that the Croisette’s loss might turn out to be the Lido’s gain. Sure enough, the 2010 Venice Film Festival, which ended last weekend, has been praised as the best in a decade.

Films such as Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan(ballet dancer Natalie Portman goes barmy), Pablo Larraín's Post Mortem(intrigue in Allende's Chile) and Aleksei Fedorchenko's Silent Souls(moodiness in central Russia) all received raves. The festival's top prize, The Golden Lion, went, however, to a film that had, to that point, met with mixed responses.

Presenting the award, jury chair Quentin Tarantino said that Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, a spiritual successor to her Lost in Translation, was the unanimous choice of the panel. (The Italian press duly made snitty remarks about Tarantino once going out with Coppola.)

There was good news for the Irish industry. Jerzy Skolimowski's Essential Killing, a co-production by Dublin-based Element Pictures, picked up the Special Jury Prize, and Vincent Gallo, who stars in the movie as an Afghan taken prisoner by US forces, won the gong for best actor.

Skolimowski accepted the award on his star's behalf. "Vincent! Come on, are you here?" he bellowed to conspicuous silence. Essential Killing, which was largely shot in Ireland, opens later in the year