Guillermo Del Toro\u2019s \u201cThe Shape of Water\u201d was awarded the Golden Lion for best film at the 74th Venice International Film Festival by the jury led by Annette Bening. In the film, set in the 1960s, a mute cleaning woman (Sally Hawkins) falls in love with a fishlike hominid in a top-secret laboratory.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a Mexican, I want to say this is a first for a Mexican storyteller,\u201d Mr. Del Toro said in his acceptance speech.<\/p>\n
The Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize went to Samuel Maoz\u2019s \u201cFoxtrot,\u201d about an Israeli family\u2019s grief over their soldier son. Mr. Maoz won the Golden Lion for \u201cLebanon\u201d in 2009. The Silver Lion for best director was given to a tearful Xavier Legrand for his family drama \u201cCustody,\u201d which was also awarded the Lion of the Future Luigi De Laurentiis Award for a Debut Film.<\/p>\n
In the performance categories, Charlotte Rampling received best actress for Andrea Pallaoro\u2019s \u201cHannah\u201d and in her speech recalled making her first feature in Italy. Kamel El Basha won best actor for his role as a Palestinian foreman in \u201cThe Insult,\u201d which he described as his first major feature film role after years in theater.<\/p>\n
The British playwright Martin McDonagh won the best screenplay award for his latest film, \u201cThree Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.\u201d The Special Jury Prize went to \u201cSweet Country,\u201d Warwick Thornton\u2019s period drama of the Australian outback.<\/p>\n
The festival\u2019s first ever competition prize for best VR was given to \u201cArden\u2019s Wake (Expanded)\u201d by a jury led by the director John Landis. Laurie Anderson\u2019s \u201cLa Camera Insabbiata\u201d won for best virtual reality experience, and \u201cBloodless,\u201d about a camp town serving United States Army soldiers in South Korea, won for best virtual reality story.<\/p>\n
The festival\u2019s Orizzonti competition, sometimes home to more adventurous works, awarded best film to the music biopic \u201cNico, 1988\u201d by the director Susanna Nicchiarelli. The Iranian film \u201cNo Date, No Signature\u201d won two prizes, for best director and best actor. The section\u2019s special jury prize was bestowed on \u201cCaniba,\u201d whose directors Verena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor gave their thanks in a video message featuring floating heart effects.<\/p>\n
Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement were presented last week to Jane Fonda and Robert Redford, who starred in the out-of-competition selection \u201cOur Souls at Night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier Saturday the International Federation of Film Critics chose two films for its awards: Frederick Wiseman\u2019s latest documentary, \u201cEx Libris: The New York Public Library,\u201d screening in competition, and \u201cOblivion Verses,\u201d an offbeat debut feature by Alireza Khatami about a morgue worker. On Friday, the sidebar section Critics\u2019 Week gave its top prize to the father-son drama \u201cHunting Season,\u201d from an Argentine filmmaker, Natalia Garagiola.<\/p>\n
The official competition was notable for big films that approached issues of social concern from surprising angles. The festival\u2019s opening film, Alexander Payne\u2019s \u201cDownsizing,\u201d received raves from Variety and The Hollywood Reporter for its tragicomic story starring Matt Damon as a man who undergoes a popular shrinking process in order to cut costs. George Clooney\u2019s latest directorial effort, \u201cSuburbicon,\u201d is a slow-burn caper set in a 1950s suburban development that has accepted its first black family. It is scripted by Joel and Ethan Coen and also stars Mr. Damon alongside Julianne Moore, and evoked some comparison to the race-based mob violence last month in Charlottesville.<\/p>\n
Mr. Wiseman\u2019s \u201cEx Libris\u201d and Mr. Del Toro\u2019s \u201cThe Shape of Water\u201d were two very different favorites on the Lido, the Venetian island where the festival takes place. The fantastical premise of \u201cThe Shape of Water\u201d is set against the backdrop of Kennedy-era America with an emphasis on the attitudes of the period. Michael Shannon plays a bigoted government investigator in a cast that includes Octavia Spencer, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, and Michael Stuhlbarg. The Hollywood Reporter called the result \u201ca portrait of morally corrupt early-1960s America with an outsider tale of love and friendship molded by a master storyteller.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Wiseman\u2019s \u201cEx Libris\u201d takes a three-hour-plus tour of the New York Public Library system and its myriad literary activities and social services. \u201cSimmering just below the surface is a political message about libraries as places of social and intellectual engagement, empowered memory and pursuit of the truth in an America where such values are under attack,\u201d Screen Daily wrote. Mr. Wiseman previously won a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement in 2014.<\/p>\n
Mr. McDonagh\u2019s darkly comic \u201cThree Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri\u201d also evoked comparisons to the strife in Charlottesville in August. It stars Frances McDormand as a mother who protests the handling of her daughter\u2019s murder by the local sheriff (Woody Harrelson). The film won passionate applause at its premiere and was a favorite in a poll of international and Italian critics, alongside \u201cThe Shape of Water\u201d and \u201cEx Libris.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two much-anticipated films made a stir but divided critics. Darren Aronofsky\u2019s secretive thriller \u201cMother!\u201d stars Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem in an apocalyptic domestic drama set almost entirely in an old house. It received some boos at its first press screening, but got heady reviews, with Screen Daily calling it \u201ca devouring and restless experience: a creative surge that\u2019s like the lancing of a boil.\u201d Also playing in competition was \u201cMektoub, My Love: Canto Uno,\u201d the latest from Abdellatif Kechiche, director of the Cannes sensation \u201cBlue Is the Warmest Color.\u201d Screened late in the festival, its explicit story of a love triangle \u201cwallows in visual delectation of the body,\u201d according to Variety. Mr. Kechiche won the Golden Lion for \u201cThe Secret of the Grain\u201d 10 years ago.<\/p>\n
Two formally adventurous critical favorites were Lucrecia Martel\u2019s Argentine period adaptation \u201cZama,\u201d which garnered a five-star review from The Guardian; and Mr. Maoz\u2019s \u201cFoxtrot.\u201d Variety singled out Mr. Maoz\u2019s drama for \u201caward-winning filmmaking on a fearless level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other noted films were two coming-of-age stories: Andrew Haigh\u2019s \u201cLean on Pete,\u201d with a well-liked lead performance by the up-and-comer Charlie Plummer, winner of the Marcello Mastroianni Award for an emerging actor; and Anne Fontaine\u2019s \u201cReinventing Marvin,\u201d the winner of the Queer Lion award for films on gay culture<\/strong>, starring Finnegan Oldfield. Finally, the Venice slate also included a new virtual reality work by Tsai Mingliang and the six-part Netflix series \u201cWormwood,\u201d from Errol Morris.<\/p>\n