Chinese film Sanxia Haoren (Still Life), about the giant Three Gorges Dam project and its impact on ordinary people during the upheaval, won this year's Venice Film Festival top award Golden Lion Saturday.

 

The film, directed by Chinese director Jia Zhangke, was a surprise entry late in the festival, and unexpectedly beat the other top candidates -- Emilio Estevez's Bobby, about the assassination of Robert Kennedy, and Stephen Frears' The Queen, about the week that followed Princess Diana's death.

 

Helen Mirren was named best actress for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen.

 

Ben Affleck carried the award of best actor for his role in Allen Coulter's Hollywoodland, which dramatizes an investigation into the death of George Reeves, star of the 1950s TV show Adventures of Superman.

 

The Queen also took the prize of best script.

 

The Silver Lion for directing went to Alain Resnais for his film Private Fears in Public Places.

 

The movie Nuovomondo (The Golden Door) by director Emanuele Crialese won the Silver Lion for revelation, an award that the jury does not have to hand out. The movie follows the voyage of a Sicilian family in the early 1990s from their homeland to America.

 

The festival's special jury prize went to Daratt, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's movie about revenge in the civil war-scarred nation of Chad.

 

(Xinhua News Agency September 11, 2006)