Samuel Maoz's Lebanon Takes the Golden Lion

Samuel Maoz's Lebanon, which is set during the First Lebanon War in 1982, took home the Golden Lion in Venice today, wrapping up the annual festivities. Ang Lee, who's won two Golden Lions himself in the past five years (for Brokeback Mountain and Lust, Caution) was the head of this year's jury, which also included Sandrine Bonnaire, Sergei Bodrov, Liliana Cavani, Joe Dante, Anurag Kashyap and Luciano Ligabue. The awards are all listed below.

Golden Lion: Lebanon - d. Samuel Maoz
Silver Lion, for Best Director: Shirin Neshat - Women Without Men
Special Jury Prize: Soul Kitchen - d. Fatih Akin
Coppa Volpi for Best Actor: Colin Firth - A Single Man
Coppa Volpi for Best Actress: Xenia Rappoport - La doppia ora
Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best New Young Actor: Jasmine Trinca - Il grande sogno
Osella for Best Technical Contribution: Sylvie Olivé, production designer - Mr. Nobody
Osella for Best Screenplay: Todd Solondz - Life During Wartime

Calling All Ken Russell Fans!

Apparently voting is the way to go these days, for both the Warner Archive Collection and Criterion Blu-ray, and now MGM. Check their page to vote for a DVD release of Ken Russell's The Music Lovers, his take on the life of Tchaikovsky starring Glenda Jackson and Richard Chamberlain, and any of the others you want to come out. Ken Loach's Ladybird Ladybird, Nick Broomfield's Diamond Skulls, Mark Romanek's Static with Amanda Plummer and Sergei Bodrov's The Prisoner of the Mountains (which is actually already on DVD and still in print as part of MGM's 'World Films' series) are other options. I'm pretty sure Russell's woefully underrated The Boyfriend belongs to Warner now (though I could be wrong). Make it count! Us Russell fans have been suffering too long. Thanks, Eric.