Venice Round-Up

• Scottish director Peter Mullan was awarded the coveted Golden Lion Award for The Magdalene Sisters, a controversial film about an Irish convent.

• Julianne Moore won the best actress award for her role in Far from Heaven, and Italian heart-throb Stefano Accorsi took home the prize for best actor for his portrayal of poet Dino Campana in Un Viaggio Chiamato Amore (A Journey Called Love).

• Tian Zhuangzhuang's Chinese-language Xiaocheng Zhi Chun (Springtime In A Small Town) won the San Marco prize for more cutting-edge works.

• One of Italy's most influential film directors, Michelangelo Antonioni, was honoured with a newly created San Marco award for his life's work.

• Out for the premiere of his new movie Dolls, Japanese director Takeshi Kitano said "Hollywood is like McDonald's" but referred to his films as more like "traditional restaurants".

• Sunday's award night may be blighted by a city-wide public transport strike.

• The festival is screening a preview of September 11 film 11'09"01 - with some stridently anti-American views - just a week before the tragedy's first anniversary.
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  It explores the attacks from 11 different directors' viewpoints.

• Kids director Larry Clark scandalised press and film buffs alike with Ken Park's scenes of sex, incest and explicit erotic acts. A number of scenes were branded as too hard-core for even the strictest rating.

• Movie-makers and stars such as Harrison Ford, Sam Mendes, Tom Hanks, Steven Soderbergh and Julianne Moore used the Venice film festival to pay tribute to the "profound change" the world is undergoing a year on from September 11. Harrison said it was time for Americans to become "global citizens".

• Harrison Ford and new love Calista Flockhart, in town to promote K-19: The Widowmaker, ended up in a high-speed boat chase on Venice's waterways and were later dragged apart as they posed for pictures outside their hotel.

• Harrison and co-star Liam Neeson insisted the sinking US box office profits of K-19 were not "the true measure of the film".

• Gwyneth Paltrow dazzled at the Frida premiere as she stepped out with her dress designer, Valentino - but after criticising British men, is now bemoaning how little free time she has.

• Director Sam Mendes fought off accusations from British film critics that Road To Perdition was "totally immoral".

• Sophia Loren kissed Between Strangers co-star Pete Postlethwaite as she defended the beleaguered British male from Paltrow's recent attacks, saying the accent was "so attractive".

• Catherine Deneuve, promoting her new film, Au Plus Pres Du Paradis, used the public forum to hit out at Hollywood's preoccupation with special effects, which she said took "the soul" out of films.

• Steven Soderbergh slammed the critics who "don't get" Full Frontal, which he insists is a satire. Stars such as Julia Roberts were paid peanuts for the honour of appearing in Soderbergh's latest.

• Mad House director Andrei Konchalovsky called on movie-goers to understand the "human scale" of the Chechen struggle for freedom from Russia.

• Dougray Scott and John Malkovich promoted Ripley's Game, the follow-up to The Talented Mr Ripley. Scott spent five weeks working with a picture framer to get into his role as picture framer Jonathan Trevanny.