(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Venezuelan director Lorenzo Vigas' powerful Caracas-set drama From Afar won the Venice Film Festival's top Golden Lion prize on Saturday, as filmmakers from the Americas beat established European directors for the main trophies.
The runner-up Grand Jury Prize went to an American film, Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson's inventive, animated Anomalisa. And Pablo Trapero's El Clan (The Clan), an Argentine true-crime thriller that has broken box-office records in its homeland, took the Silver Lion for best direction.
From Afar - Desde Alla in Spanish - is Vigas' first fiction feature, and charts the unexpected relationship between a middle-aged, middle-class man and a violent street youth. Quietly but powerfully, the film maps the currents of sex, money and violence beneath the surface of Venezuelan society.
Vigas dedicated his prize to his country, which is experiencing political and economic turbulence. "We are having some problems, but we are very positive," he said. "We are an amazing nation."
The director said movies could help Latin America "learn from the mistakes of the past."
A jury led by Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron chose winners from among 21 movies competing at the 72nd annual festival - an edition where war, crime and other woes of the world dominated onscreen.
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