By Peter Mayer, dpaVenice, Italy - This year's vibrant edition of the Venice Film Festival suggested cinema-making can thrive and even excel despite the economic gloom.
It served up a mix of movies that ranged in theme from the political to the miraculous, with a generous dose of dark humour thrown in in between.
Awards for the 66th edition of the world's oldest film contest - the inaugural event was held in 1932 - are set to be announced at a Saturday night gala event at the lagoon city's Lido.
By then, this year's jury headed by Taiwan-born director Ang Lee will have decided which of the 25 films in competition is worthy of the top Gloden Lion prize for best film.
Suggesting that it too could be in contention for a prize, A Single Man won plenty of applause Friday when it became the last of the in-competition films to be screened at the festival.
Marking top US fashion designer Tom Ford's first foray into film- making, A Single Man is based on a novel by Christopher Isherwood and set in Los Angeles in the not-so-tolerant early 1960s.
It deals with a collage professor coming to terms with the death in a car accident of his gay lover.
Colin Firth's restrained performance as the professor, in keeping with his character's discreet demeanour, could earn him a Coppa Volpi prize for best male actor.
Strong contenders for the Golden Lion include what was perhaps the festival's most anticipated film, Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, which drew cheers during public and press screenings.
The film is an expose of Wall Street's greedy wheeling and dealing, in cahoots with the Washington government, which, the US director alleges, led to the subprime mortgage crisis and the bankruptcy of several major banks and corporations such as General Motors.
Another festival favourite - at least according to audience and media response - to emerge from the US was Todd Solonz's Life During Wartime, a dark comedy set in the up-market suburbs of Florida.
War, as seen from the perspective of soldiers holed up in a tank - a claustrophobic experience audiences are made to share by the way the films is shot - is the topic of Israeli director Samuel Maoz's well-received Lebanon.
Also much applauded was Lourdes, by Austrian director Jessica Hausner - a stark glimpse into the world of package-tour pilgrimages.
The film also questions the true meaning of miracles and stars, as a disabled young woman, French actress Sylvie Testud, whose performance makes her a favourite for the festival's Coppa Volpi for best actress.
Turkish-descended German director, Fatih Akin, who in his past films has tended to cast a gritty look at life, conjured up one of Venice's most pleasant surprises with his Soul Kitchen, a romantic comedy revolving around a restaurant and its owner, the shaggy-haired German-Greek, Zinos.
Italy's strong numerical presence at the festival - four films in competition - raised hopes that the host nation may be able to capture its first Golden Lion since 1998.
However, the festival's opening film, Oscar winner Giuseppe Tornatore's big budget, Sicilian family epic, largely left critics unimpressed by its length - two and a half hours - and loose plot.
Receiving a better reception was La Doppia Ora, a noir thriller by Giuseppe Capotondi, whose film debut follows a career making music videos, including for the Spice Girls.
