Colin Farrell wins best actor at Venice Film Festival

PA

Colin Farrell has won the best actor award at the 79th Venice International Film Festival.

Farrell won the award for playing a man who is broken up with by his long-time friend in Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees Of Inisherin.

“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 screenplay.

The film was shot on Inishmore and Achill Island, and also stars Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan.

Cate Blanchett won best actress for her performance as a renowned conductor in Todd Field’s Tar.

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, led by Julianne Moore, is selecting the winners from 23 films in competition that included many Oscar hopefuls. The Oscar-winner presided over a jury that included French director Audrey Diwan, whose film Happening won the Golden Lion last year, author Kazuo Ishiguro and Iranian actor Leila Hatami.

Also on the main jury were Italian director Leonardo Di Costanzo Argentinian filmmaker Mariano Cohn and Rodrigo Sorogoyen.

Premiering in competition at Venice has launched many successful Oscar campaigns in recent years, leading to nominations and even wins.

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.