Blanchett named best actress at Venice

VENICE: Cate Blanchett won the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday for her performance playing a renowned, hard-driving lesbian conductor in "Tar".

Blanchett, 53, considered one of the greatest actresses of her generation, won the same award at the festival in 2007 for her performance as Bob Dylan.

The best actor award was given to Ireland’s Colin Farrell for his part in the tragicomedy The Banshee Of Inisherin while All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, a documentary about US photographer Nan Goldin and her fight against the wealthy Sackler family, won the top Golden Lion award on Saturday.Made by investigative journalist Laura Poitras, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed interweaves the remarkable story of Goldin’s own life with her campaign to hold the Sacklers and their pharmaceutical company accountable for the US opioid crisis.

The runner-up Silver Lion award went to an intense French courtroom drama Saint Omer by director Alice Diop making her debut in fiction after a string of documentaries.

"I’m shocked to get this and thrilled," Farrell said in a live video message broadcast at the festival on Saturday night.

A documentary tracing an artist’s campaign against the family behind the US opioid drug epidemic scooped the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday.