Colin Farrell has won the best actor award at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on Saturday.
Farrell received the award for his role in Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees Of Inisherin as a guy broken up with by his long-time friend.
“I’m shocked to get this and thrilled,” Farrell said in a live video message broadcast at the festival Saturday night.
McDonagh was on site to collect the prize before he got one of his own for the screenplay.
Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan are also featured in the movie, which was filmed in Inishmore and Achill Island.
For her portrayal of a renowned conductor in Todd Field’s Tar, Cate Blanchett won the best actress.
All The Beauty And The Bloodshed, Laura Poitras’s documentary about photographer Nan Goldin and her activism against the Sackler family, has been awarded the Golden Lion for best film at the festival.
The jury, presided over by Julianne Moore, is choosing the winners from 23 films that were in competition including numerous Oscar hopefuls. The Golden Lion-winning film Happening was directed by Frenchwoman Audrey Diwan, who also served on the jury, along with Kazuo Ishiguro, an author, and Iranian actress Leila Hatami.
Also on the main jury were Italian director Leonardo Di Costanzo Argentinian filmmaker Mariano Cohn and Rodrigo Sorogoyen.
Many recent successful Oscar campaigns that resulted in nominations and even wins began with Venice competition premieres.
Seven times in the last nine years the best director Oscar has gone to a film that world premiered at the festival, including Chloe Zhao, Alfonso Cuaron, Alejandro G Inarritu, twice, Guillermo del Toro and Damien Chazelle.
It has also debuted a handful future best picture winners like Nomadland, The Shape Of Water and Birdman.