Date

September 8, 2013 – 4:56PM

Rous Mony and Sang Malen in the uncompromising Ruin, a romantic road movie shot in Cambodia.

Australian film Ruin, a surreal and meditative love story filmed in Cambodia, won a special jury prize at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday night. Ruin, directed by Amiel Courtin-Wilson and Michael Cody, was shot on a shoestring budget with Khmer-speaking actors. The directors and cinematographer Ari Wegner were awarded the prize in the festival’s cutting-edge Horizons section.

The Horizons jury was headed by American director and screen-writer Paul Schrader, whose many credits include the coruscating script for Taxi Driver. It is the second film the directing duo has screened in Venice; their first feature Hail showed there successfully two years ago. Ruin’s success as an Australian film shot in Asia follows that of The Rocket, made in Laos by Kim Mordaunt, which has won prizes in a succession of  international festivals.

Venice was at its hot, steamy worst for the final night of the festival, having trailed to an end as seemingly the majority of visitors decamped in the middle of last week for the much bigger and more business-like festival in Toronto. A sprinkling of international press remained to see Bernardo Bertulucci, Italy’s greatest living cinematic maestro and head of the Venezia 70 jury for the main competition, give the Golden Lion to his compatriot Gianfranco Rosi for Sacro Gra, an intriguing and frequently bizarre observational documentary about life along a Roman ring road. Australian film Tracks, directed by John Curran, was among the 20 films in competition.