?The Return?, a Russian film about the harrowing reunion of a father with his sons after a 10-year absence, won the Venice Film Festival?s top prize, the Golden Lion, on Saturday. First-time director Andrey Zvyagintsev dedicated the award to the 15-year-old star of the film,Vladimir Garin, who tragically died a couple of months after shooting. He drowned in the region where the film was set. ?There are only two actors here. Those who?ve seen the film know there should be three actors, three heroes up here. But two months ago he died tragically,? said Zvyaginstev, who was greeted with a standing ovation. ?We want to dedicate this victory to him.?

The spare, brooding picture tells the story of two boys whose lives are changed forever when they go on a fishing trip in rugged Russian lake country with their newly returned father. ?The Return? (?Vozvraschenie?) also won the award for best first feature. ?For a first-time director it?s absolutely extraordinary,? said Screen International critic Lee Marshall.

In a strange coincidence, a separate first-time Russian director won the Golden Lion in 1962. He was Andrei Tarkovsky, presenting the film ?Ivanovo detstvo?. The runner-up Jury Grand Prix was awarded to ?The Kite? (?Le Cerf-Volant?), a film by Lebanese director Randa Chahal Sabbag about love and separation along the Lebanese-Israeli border.

Cult Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Kitano won a Silver Lion for his directing of ?Zatoichi? about a blind samurai warrior who saves a village from sword-wielding gangsters. Kitano won the Golden Lion in 1997 for his film ?Hana Bi?. Sean Penn won best actor for his role as a terminally ill university professor in ?21 Grams?, a film about loss and redemption in middle American which is already being tipped for an Oscar nomination.

A moustachioed Penn dedicated his award to the director of the film, Mexico?s acclaimed Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, and fellow stars Benicio Del Toro and Naomi Watts. When asked how it compared to an Oscar, he said: ?It?s an entirely different honour, which honours the kind of filmmaking I?m interested. On top of that on the way in the door no-one asked me who I was wearing.?

Germany?s Katja Riemann won best actress for her role in ?Rosenstrasse? as the Aryan wife of a Jew in Nazi Germany. Italian director Marco Bellocchio won the prize for ?outstanding individual contribution? for his ?Goodmorning, Night? (?Buongiorno, Notte?) about the 1978 kidnapping and murder of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro.

Organisers said the jury was spoiled for choice this year by the number of high quality films on offer. ?The most important indicator of success has been that almost all the films shown have been sold out for distribution,? Franco Bernabe, the president of the Biennale umbrella group which organises the festival, told Reuters.

Shasta Darlington

Deauville

Polanski receives belated Oscar Franco-Polish film director Roman Polanski (R) receives an Oscar from American actor Harrison Ford (L) during the American film festival in Deauville, Western France, on Saturday night. Polanski won the Oscar for best director for his Holocaust drama ?The Pianist? but could not receive it at the Oscar ceremony in May, in the USA. Polanski fled the United States for France in 1978 when he faced a a prison sentence for having sex with a 13-year-old girl. He faces arrest if he sets foot in the United States.