A Swedish film won the Golden Lion for Best Film, the highest prize awarded at the 71st Venice film festival which ended here on Saturday.

En duva satt pa en gren och funderade pa tillvaron (A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence) by Swedish director Roy Andersson is the story of two traveling salesmen who, like modern times' Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, take the audience on a wandering through human destinies.

The Silver Lion for Best Director went to Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky for his The Postman's White Nights, which focuses on the lives of the inhabitants of a remote Russian village.

American actor Adam Driver, the male protagonist of Hungry Hearts, a film by Italian director Saverio Costanzo that reflects the obsessive fears of the present society, won the Coppa Volpi award for Best Actor.

The Coppa Volpi award for Best Actress was given to the female protagonist of the same film, Italian actress Alba Rohrwacher.

The Grand Jury Prize went to The Look of Silence by American director Joshua Oppenheimer, a documentary filming perpetrators of the Indonesian genocide.

Twenty titles, of which 19 world premieres and one international premiere, competed for the Golden Lion. The motley jury included the jury president French musician Alexandre Desplat, famous for the soundtracks of important movies, and English costume designer Sandy Powell.

Chinese American actress Joan Chen, Jhumpa Lahiri, an American author of Indian origin, and English actor Tim Roth were also in the nine-member group along with jury members from other countries and regions of the world including Germany, Italy and the Palestinian territory.

The Orizzonti selection, an international competition dedicated to films that represent the latest aesthetic and expressive trends in international cinema, gave its Award for Best Film to Court by Indian director Chaitanya Tamhane. The film is the tale of an old storyteller indicted of instigation to suicide.

Jordanian director Naji Abu Nowar won the Orizzonti Award for Best Director for his Theeb, the story of a young boy who lives with his Bedouin tribe in a forgotten corner of the Ottoman Empire.

A total of 56 films were screened this year in the official selection at the world's oldest film festival, which ran from Aug. 27 to Sept. 6 on the Lido seafront in the Italian iconic water city. Endit

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