“Unknown Woman” was a major talking point of the festival because of its subject matter, which has rarely been shown on film, and because director May El-Toukhy was almost alone as a female director at the event.

The only other woman behind the 21 films vying for awards at the star-studded finale in Venice was Israel’s Rachel Szor, co-director of “Naza,” the horror documentary about Israel’s war on Gaza.

“‘Woman Unknown’ is about the female body as a battlefield and as a public matter. And at the same time, the film tells the story of women who are invisible, unseen and voiceless,” El-Toukhy said at the ceremony.

This year’s jury head, American actor-director Maggie Gyllenhaal, had questioned the lack of women-directed films on the first day.

“There is a systemic problem,” he told reporters.

– Other winners –

Saturday’s awards ceremony culminated an often dark, harrowing 10-day event that chief organizer Alberto Barbera promised would echo the war-torn and anxiety-filled state of the world.

Second place Silver Lion went to “Possible Love”, a poignant relationship study by South Korean writer Lee Chang-dong, which was one of the festival’s most acclaimed films.

The best director award went to Russian-born Ilya Khrzhanovsky for his sprawling, riotous and experimental cinema project “DAU,” which chronicles the life of Lev Landau, the troubled father of the Soviet nuclear program.

The more than three-hour film began two decades ago and involved 2,000 people, many of them actors who lived in character for months on a full-scale reconstruction of a secret Soviet research institute as filmed by Khrzhanovsky.

“Not everyone believed the film would be finished, but I always had faith,” he told the audience, dedicating the award to the people of Ukraine, who are fighting in this terrible war for their freedom.

The best actor award went to John Malkovich for his role as a weary CIA agent in the dark comedy “Wild Horse Nine,” which saw him take a vacation with a colleague on Easter Island in Chile before a U.S.-backed military coup in 1973.

Film magazine Variety said Malkovich was “slaying the awards” and tipped him for a possible first Best Actor Oscar at the next awards ceremony.

The Best Actress award went to Denmark’s Mathilde Arcel, for her first film role in “Woman Unknown”.

She plays a bride who is desperately trying to hide the embarrassment of her past relationship with a Nazi during occupied Denmark.

“If this is a dream I really don’t want to wake up,” she told the audience as she tearfully held up her award on stage.

– Gaza Film –

Oscar-winning Israeli director Yuval Abraham and Szor’s “Naza” was snubbed by some critics for the top Golden Lion prize for best film after a record-breaking 25 minutes of applause at its premiere on Thursday.

Instead it won a Special Jury Prize, an award given each year by a jury to recognize outstanding work.

In their 80-minute film, Abraham and Szor spoke to 24 different Israeli military or intelligence informants who outlined the AI-powered targeting systems used to bomb Gaza, which has killed thousands of civilians.

“The Israeli intelligence officers we spoke to talked to us about how this mass murder is systemic: not by accident, but by design, by acts of murder and policies that are based on the complete dehumanization of Palestinians,” Abraham told the audience.

The film was described as “urgent, gut-punching” by the film magazine Screen, while The Hollywood Reporter said it “inspires outrage… even contempt. At a deep level, certainly disgust” for the current Israeli regime.

The Israeli military criticized the film’s use of anonymous testimonies, saying on Friday that the identities of the whistleblowers “cannot be verified”.

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