Lebanon has won the Golden Lion for best film at the 66th Venice Film Festival.
The film, directed by Samuel Maoz, is viewed through the eyes of Israeli paratroopers searching a hostile town durin the first Lebanon War, in 1982.
Colin Firth scooped the Coppa Volpi for best actor, for his role in A Single Man - which sees him play a gay college professor struggling to come to terms with this death of his long-term partner.
Giving his acceptance speech in Italian he described it as "possibly the greatest honour of my life".
The Silver Bear, for best direction, went to Shirin Neshat for Women Without Men (Zanan Bedoone Mardan). It tells the stories of four women in Iran, in 1953, as unrest grips Tehran on the eve of a CIA-backed coup that reinstalled the shah and overturned the elected government.
The special jury prize was won by Fatih Akin for Soul Kitchen, while the Coppa Volpi for best actress when tot Ksenia Rappoport for Italian film La Doppia Ora.
Other winners, included Todd Solondz, who won the best screenplay award for Life During Wartime and Jasmine Trinca, who won the best new actor award for Italian film Il Grande Sogno.
