Quirky Swedish film takes top Venice award

Director Andrej Koncalovskij poses during the photo call for the movie "Belye nochi pochtalona alekseya tryapitsyna" (The Postman's White Nights) at the 71st Venice Film Festival September 5, 2014. [Photo/Agencies]

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The award for best director went to 77-year-old Andrei Konchalovsky for his film "The Postman's White Nights", which is set in a lakeside village in the Russian countryside and follows the lives of local people, sometimes filmed through hidden cameras.

Konchalovsky, who has made films in Hollywood as well as in Russia, and whose film in Venice won raves but also lukewarm reviews, mostly for its lack of a discernible plot, said it was a "strange sensation" to receive the award.

"I will tell you I think in all of us artists who are doing some film there is still a kid hiding somewhere inside of us," he said. "Thank you very much and tomorrow we go and pretend we are adults."

He said it was not the first time he had filmed ordinary people, some of whom had said if they'd known he was shooting "I would have used makeup or I would at least be sober".

American director Joshua Oppenheimer's "The Look of Silence", a documentary about confronting the perpetrators of massacres in Indonesia in the 1960s following a failed coup, got the Jury Prize for best film.

The Italian film "Hungry Hearts", directed by Saverio Costanzo who said he made the film for under 1 million euros($1.30 million), took the best actor and best actress awards.

They went to Adam Driver, who will be in the next "Star Wars" sagas, and Alba Rohrwacher in the story of a New York wife obsessed with cleanliness when her baby is born.