Still Life is surprise winner at Venice

Venice: Chinese movie Still Life, set against the backdrop of China's gigantic Three Gorges Dam project, won this year's Golden Lion, the top award at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday.

The award ceremony on the glamorous Lido beach front wrapped up an 11-day movie marathon with over 20 premieres in the main competition and dozens more being screened for the first time.

Still Life was shot in the village of Fengjie, which has since been destroyed by the Three Gorges Dam, and recounts the story of people who return there during the upheaval.

At a news conference earlier in the festival, Jia said he was keen to spotlight the problems associated with the dam now that media attention had faded.

"We were told there would be a surprise film at the end of this festival, and we didn't have a lot of discussion," French actress Catherine Deneuve, who headed the jury that awarded the top prize, told reporters after the ceremony.

The top film award to Chinese director Jia Zhang-ke was a surprise entry late in the festival, and trumped such candidates as Emilio Estevez' Bobby, about the assassination of Robert Kennedy, and The Queen, about the week that followed Princess Diana's death.

The award, which last year went to Brokeback Mountain, may boost morale among Chinese directors after Lou Ye was banned from making movies for five years for submitting a film at the Cannes film festival without official approval.

As expected, Helen Mirren took the best actress award for her title role in The Queen, a British production about the crisis in the royal family caused by the death of Princess Diana in 1997 and Prime Minister Tony Blair's role.

"It's an incredible honour to have a film take its first steps here in Venice," Mirren said at the prize ceremony. "Stephen Frears is the mother of the film. I'm just a bit of the DNA of this film."

The best screenplay prize went to The Queen's Peter Morgan, who said his story was faithful to actual events but not an exact historical reconstruction.

Another surprise was in store in the best actor category, which went to US heartthrob Ben Affleck for his performance as 1950s Superman actor George Reeves in Hollywoodland.

Veteran French filmmaker Alain Resnais won best director for the critically acclaimed Private Fears in Public Places and the special jury prize went to Daratt, Chad's first ever entry in the prestigious competition.