This year's Venice Film Festival wrapped with few surprises, as the two most-talked about films took home the top prizes. The Golden Lion went to the Iranian film The Circle, Jafar Panahi's look at the lives of contemporary Iranian women. The Grand Jury Prize was awarded to Before Night Falls from Julian Schnabel, which had audiences buzzing a week ago after it first screened. The film stars Javier Bardem (who also took home the Coppa Volpi for Best Performance) as a Cuban novelist and poet who fled to the United States. Rose Byrne won the Best Actress award for her tour-de-force role as the blind girl in Clara Law's The Goddess of 1967. One surprise winner at the festival was 27-year old Portuguese filmmaker Claudia Tomaz, whose Noites won the Critics Week Prize. The jury praised her film about Lisbon drug addicts for "giving priority to images rather than to words, without being afraid of representing desperation and emptiness in our society through slowness."

Awards

Golden Lion: Dayereh (The Circle) by Jafar Panahi

Grand Jury Prize: Before Night Falls by Julian Schnabel

Coppa Volpi for Best Actor: Javier Bardem for Before Night Falls

Coppa Volpi for Best Actress: Rose Byrne in The Goddess of 1967

NETPAC Prize: Platform by Jia Zhang-ke

NETPAC Special Mention: Seom (The Isle) by Kim Ki-Duk

UNICEF Prize: Dayereh by Jafar Panahi

FIPRESCI Prize: Thomas est Amoureux by Pierre-Paul Render "for its innovative film language and humour, perfectly matching its theme of miscommunication" and to Dayereh by Jafar Panahi "for its imaginative blending of content and form, to deal with the situation of women in any patriarchal society."

Critics Week Prize: Noites by Claudia Tomaz

Marcello Mastroianni Award: Megan Durns in Liam

Best Screenplay: I cento Passi

Golden Medal of the Italian Senate: La Vierge Des Tueurs

Premio Venezia Opera Prima: Luigi de Laurentiis in La Faute à Voltaire

Special Director's Award: Uttara by Buddhadeb Basgupta