Lebanon by Israeli Samuel Maoz wins Golden Lion in Venice

Lebanon by Israeli Samuel Maoz, the story of the first Lebanon war told from inside an Israeli tank, won the Golden Lion at the Venice film festival yesterday.

"I know it may be naive, but I like to believe that the film I made will open people's minds and that they will ask themselves who it is that we are," Maoz said.

Colin Firth, star of Tom Ford's A Single Man, picked up the Volpi Cup for best actor, while Russian actress Ksenia Rappoport won best actress for her role in La Doppia Ora.

"I'm here for the gift that Tom Ford gave me," Firth said as he accepted the award. "Tom Ford had a cause that he put in my hands, so it became a very important thing for me as well."

Ford's film about a gay professor mourning the death of his partner is an adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's landmark 1964 novel.

A Single Man, a first film for former Gucci designer Ford, 48, offers a moving snapshot of life as a homosexual more than four decades ago.

Iranian photographer and visual artist Shirin Neshat won the Silver Lion for best director for Women Without Men.

Her directorial debut dissects Iranian society at the time of the 1953 CIA-backed coup that overturned the nationalist government of Mohammed Mossadegh and installed the shah in power.