Venice film festival's Golden Lion award goes to Kim Ki-duk's Pieta
The Venice film festival wrapped up in controversy yesterday after Kim Ki-duk took the Golden Lion with his Korean morality tale amid reports that the jury had wanted a different winner.
said the jury had been prevented from choosing American director Paul Thomas Anderson's for the honour for best movie because the Scientology-inspired film was already picking up the festival's awards for best director and best actor.
Festival rules stipulate that no one film can win more than two awards, and the reports said the jury was therefore forced to consult again before settling on Kim's , a gut-wrenching condemnation of money-grabbing capitalism.
In an unusual career with no film training that has taken him from being a manual labourer, street artist and trainee preacher to art house master, Kim said he was elated after becoming the first Korean to win the festival.
"I am not trying to earn money with my films. I shot with the equivalent of US$100,000," said the pony-tailed director, who is known for shooting quickly and on low budgets, with being his 18th film.
"My aim is to take the temperature of the world from time to time," he said.
Kim also explained the significance of the Korean folk song , which he unexpectedly belted out from the stage after collecting his award, to the delight of an audience used to predictable thank-you speeches from winners.
"We Koreans sing it when we feel lonely or abandoned, but also when we are happy. It symbolises the many hills we have to cross, from sadness to joy - the meanders of life," said Kim, speaking in Korean with English translation.
The South Korean's film is a bleak story about a brutal loan shark who preys on the clapped-out workshops of a district of Seoul that is quickly being redeveloped, until a woman claiming to be his mother suddenly appears in his life.
Italian newspapers, meanwhile, homed in on a major gaffe during the ceremony when organisers at first confused the winners of the best director and special jury prizes, leading to an embarrassing handover of prizes.
The reports also commented on the fact that few stars were present, with Philip Seymour Hoffman having to pick up the best director award for Anderson and the best actor prize he jointly won with Joaquin Phoenix for .
