A Single Man, Tom
Ford's directorial debut, has won the Queer Lion award
at the Venice International Film Festival.
Ford competed against fourteen other
films to win the third annual prize for gay-themed films screened at
the festival.
A Single Man was the last of 25
films to screen in competition for the festival's top prize, the
Golden Lion. It is the only gay-themed film in competition for the
main prize.
The big screen adaption of Christopher
Isherwood's 1964 novel of the same name, stars Colin Firth, Julianne
Moore and Matthew Goode.
Isherwood's novel centers on college
professor George (played by Firth) as he struggles on after the
sudden loss of his partner, Jim (played by Goode). George is the
ultimate outsider in 1960s Los Angeles: middle-aged, gay and British.
“The story is a romantic tale of love
interrupted, the isolation that is an inherent part of the human
condition, and ultimately the importance of the seemingly smaller
moments in life,” Fade to Black, Ford's production company, said in
a statement.
At Friday's premiere, fashion designer
turned film director Ford said the film is not “about being gay.”
“It's really a film about love and
isolation that I think all of us feel, so it is very universal,”
Ford said at a news conference. “When I see someone who sees the
film and says, 'It's a gay story,' I don't even know what they are
thinking, it just seems to me a human story.”
Directors Gustav Hofer and Luca Ragazzi
presided over the Queer Lion award jury panel. The couple's
documentary on gay marriage in Italy Suddenly Last Winter won
a Panorama special mention at last year's Berlin Film Festival.
Gay Entertainment Report is a feature
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