After the flop came the triumph. Two years after his failure, The Fountain, Darren Aronofsky returns to the Venice Film Festival to see his latest work crowned with the highest honour. Indeed, US film The Wrestler has won the Golden Lion at the festival’s 65th edition, chosen by a jury presided by Wim Wenders, and including Juriy Arabov, Douglas Gordon, Lucrecia Martel, Valeria Golino, John Landis and Johnnie To.

The Orizzonti Jury at the 65th Venice Film Festival, comprised of Chantal Akerman (President), Nicole Brenez, Barbara Cupisti, Jose Luis Guerin, and Veiko Õunpuu, has unanimously decided to award the following prizes:

ORIZZONTI PRIZE to:

Melancholia by Lav DIAZ (Philippines)

France’s L’Apprenti scoops Best Film The 23 rd International Critics’ Week jury - composed of international critics Bruno Fornara, Deborah Young and Elisabeth Lequeret - have awarded Best Film to Samuel Collardey’s L’apprenti (”The Apprentice”).

After Barbet Schroeder’s Inju, the second French film in competition at the Venice Film Festival is appropriately titled The Other One. The film is also the second feature for the cinema by directors Patrick Mario Bernard and Pierre Trividic after Dancing.

The first Italian film to screen in competition at the Venice Film Festival, Ferzan Ozpetek’s A Perfect Day [trailer] - adapted from Melania Mazzucco’s eponymous novel - is pure tragedy. An intense love story with a thriller-like ending, A Perfect Day stars Isabella Ferrari and Valerio Mastandrea as a married couple who are separated but still tragically attracted to one another.

A prolific shorts filmmaker with a number of television projects to his name, Romanian director Adrian Sitaru’s enigmatic feature debut Hooked was very well received at its public screening. The film is not only an engaging portrait of a couple on the possible brink of a break-up, but also an exercise in style - the entire film is shot in POV, alternating fluidly between the perspectives of the various characters.

Machan, the feature debut by producer-turned-director Uberto Pasolini (Palookaville, The Full Monty), screened to a full house and a standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival today. Based on a true story, the film recounts the trials and tribulations of 23 Sri Lankan men who created a phony handball team in order to participate in a Bavarian tournament and escape to Europe.

Czech cinema returns to the Venice International Film Festival with Bohdan Slama’s third film, A Country Teacher, screening in the Venice Days section.

After Venice, A Country Teacher heads to Toronto, where it screens in the Contemporary World Cinema section.