TAIPEI, Sept 24, 2007 (AFP) - Director Angola Lee was greeted by hundreds of movie fans on his return to his native Taiwan Monday after scooping a top prize for his award-winning 'Lust, Caution.'

Lee picked up his second Golden Lion best picture award at the Venice film festival earlier this month for the erotic spy thriller.

Lee, who now lives in New York, returned to Taipei Sunday following a promotional tour of Hong Kong and several other cities.

BEIJING, Sept 11, 2007 (AFP) - Taiwanese director Angola Lee axed 30 minutes from his award-winning erotic spy thriller 'Lust, Caution' to pass China's censorship rules and make it child friendly, state media reported Tuesday.

Lee, who on Saturday picked up his second Venice Film Festival Golden Lion for best picture for his new film, was told by Chinese authorities he had to cut out steamy scenes for mainland China's audience, Xinhua news agency said.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 9, 2007 (AFP) - Taiwanese director Angola Lee on Saturday picked up his second Venice Film Festival Golden Lion for best picture for his new erotic spy thriller 'Lust, Caution'.

Lee, who won the Golden Lion and an Oscar for his groundbreaking 2005 gay cowboy movie 'Brokeback Mountain', dedicated his win to Swedish film legend Ingmar Bergman who died this year.

TORONTO, Sept 8, 2007 (AFP) - US star Brad Pitt on Saturday said it was 'great fun' to win the Venice film festival award for best actor for his role in 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.'

'I could try to play it down, but it's great fun,' Pitt said in Toronto, where thousands of fans packed the streets looking for a glimpse of the actor following the film's North American premiere.

'We all have our jobs (to do) and want to be really good at it, and to have this kind of acknowledgement is a real honor,' he said.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 8, 2007 (AFP) - Taiwanese director Angola Lee picked up his second Golden Lion for best picture at the Venice film festival on Saturday for his erotic spy thriller 'Se, Jie' (Lust, Caution).

Lee, 53, said he was accepting the Golden Lion 'in the shadow of the passing of two great giants, Michelangelo Antonioni and Ingmar Bergman, realising how huge this festival has become.'

'Lust, Caution,' shot in studios in Shanghai in Malaysia, was not among the front-runners among the 23 films competing for the top prize here.

VENICE, Sept 8, 2007 (AFP) - Herewith the winners of the prestigious Golden Lion at the Venice film festival since 1980:

1980: (tied) 'Gloria' by John Cassavetes (United States) and 'Atlantic City' by Louis Malle (France)

1981: 'Die Bleierne Zeit' (Marianne and Juliane) by Margarethe von Trotta (Germany)

1982: 'The State of Things' by Wim Wenders (Germany)

1983: 'Prenom Carmen' (First Name: Carmen) by Jean-Luc Godard (France)

1984: 'The Year of the Quiet Sun' by Krzysztof Zanussi (Poland)

VENICE, Italy, Sept 8, 2007 (AFP) - Following are the main prizes awarded Saturday at the Venice film festival:

- Golden Lion for Best Film: 'Lust, Caution' by Angola Lee of Taiwan

- Best Actor: American Brad Pitt for his role in 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford'.

- Best Actress: Autralia's Cate Blanchett for her role in 'I'm Not There'.

- Silver Lion for Best Director: US director Brian De Palma for 'Redacted'.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 8, 2007 (AFP) - British director Ken Loach on Saturday won the award for Best Screenplay at the Venice film festival for his depiction of the exploitation of immigrants in 'It's a Free World.'

'Of course a screenplay means absolutely nothing if you look into an actor's eyes and don't believe them,' he said, praising the cast which starred Kierston Wareing as a gritty single mother-cum-entrepreneur.

'Most of all I'd like to thank the hundreds and hundreds of workers, legal and illegal,' that he met while making the film, Loach said.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 8, 2007 (AFP) - Taiwanese director Angola Lee picked up his second Golden Lion at the Venice film festival on Saturday for his erotic spy thriller 'Se, Jie' (Lust, Caution).

Lee said he received the award 'in the shadow of the passing of two great giants, Michaelangelo Antonioni and Ingmar Bergman, I realise how huge this festival has become.'

He dedicated the award to Bergman, whom he saw while working on 'Lust, Caution.'

VENICE, Italy, Sept 8, 2007 (AFP) - The Venice film festival on Saturday awarded special jury awards to US director Todd Haynes for his unique Bob Dylan biopic and Franco-Tunisian director Abdellatif Kechiche.

Haynes' 'I'm Not There' was also honoured with the award for Best Actress to Australian Cate Blanchett, who played the character most resembling Dylan in the complex film on the folk icon.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 8, 2007 (AFP) - Veteran US director Brian De Palma won the Best Director award at the Venice film festival on Saturday for 'Redacted,' his hard-hitting Iraq war film.

The dramatisation of the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl by US soldiers, was also honoured on Friday with the Future Film Festival Digital Award, for the film that makes the best use of animation or visual effects.

De Palma, who is best known for such violent fictions as the psychic thriller 'Carrie' and the gangster movie 'Scarface' (1983), turns 67 on Tuesday.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 8, 2007 (AFP) - Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov on Saturday was honoured for the 'ensemble of his work' at the Venice film festival on Saturday.

He was praised for the 'consistent brilliance of (his) body of work' and the 'great humanity and emotion, and the complexity of existence' evoked in his films.

Mikhalkov presented '12,' a rowdy courtroom drama about a Russian jury asked to convict a Chechen youth for the murder of his stepfather, at this year's festival.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 8, 2007 (AFP) - US star Brad Pitt on Saturday won the best actor award at the Venice film festival for his role in 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Harold Ford.'

The two-and-a-half-hour saga, which Pitt said was 'meant to be a throwback to the great films of the 70s,' explores the complex relationship between the charismatic outlaw and his admirer turned traitor.

Pitt was not present to accept the award.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 8, 2007 (AFP) - Australian actress Cate Blanchett won the award Saturday for best actress at the Venice film festival for her role in the Todd Haynes biopic of Bob Dylan, 'I'm Not There.'

'I'm sorry I can't stand here throwing my arms around Todd, weeping just like a woman,' she said in a statement read out at the award ceremony.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 8, 2007 (AFP) - Brian De Palma's Iraq war film 'Redacted' and a spy thriller by Taiwan's Angola Lee were among favourites to win the coveted Golden Lion for best movie at the Venice film festival on Saturday.

Films by Franco-Tunisian director Abdellatif Kechiche, Britain's Ken Loach and US director Todd Haynes were also among leading contenders in the festival's 75th anniversary year.

A special honour is planned for cinema legend Bernardo Bertolucci, 66, at the award ceremony.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 8, 2007 (AFP) - The Venice film festival is to bestow the coveted Golden Lion on Saturday, with Brian De Palma's Iraq war film 'Redacted' among the favourites along with films by Franco-Tunisian director Abdellatif Kechiche, Britain's Ken Loach and Todd Haynes of the United States.

Another dozen prizes in the festival's 75th anniversary year will include a special honour for cinema legend Bernardo Bertolucci, 66, at the award ceremony to begin at 7:00 pm (1700 GMT).

VENICE, Italy, Sept 8, 2007 (AFP) - The Venice film festival is to bestow the coveted Golden Lion on Saturday, with Brian De Palma's Iraq war film 'Redacted' among the favourites along with films by Franco-Tunisian director Abdellatif Kechiche, Britain's Ken Loach and Todd Haynes of the United States.

Another dozen prizes in the festival's 75th anniversary year will include a special honour for cinema legend Bernardo Bertolucci.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 7, 2007 (AFP) - The buzz mounted Friday over which of 23 contending films will walk away with the prestigious Golden Lion at the Venice film festival, which marked its 75th anniversary this year.

The French film 'La Graine et le Mulet' (Grain of Life) by Tunisian-born director Abdellatif Kechiche has been the Italian critics' front-runner for several days, while Tom Hayne's kaleidoscopic biopic of Bob Dylan, 'I'm Not There,' was also well received.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 7, 2007 (AFP) - Former US president Jimmy Carter takes on America's mainstream media with a controversial book on the Middle East in a Jonathan Demme documentary that premiered Friday at the Venice film festival.

The documentary portrait 'Man from Plains' follows Carter all over America on his tour late last year to promote the book, provocatively titled 'Palestine: Peace not Apartheid.'

VENICE, Italy, Sept 7, 2007 (AFP) - Italian cinema legend Bernardo Bertolucci was to receive a special award on the 75th anniversary of the Venice film festival on Friday, the final day of screening in the competition.

'His movies are at once a declaration of love for the cinema and a manifesto of future utopias, the ones which will be reborn from those of the past,' festival director Marco Mueller said of Bertolucci, 67.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 6, 2007 (AFP) - British director and art house favourite Peter Greenaway has applied his own unique brush to the cinematic canvas to illuminate the many secrets of the Rembrandt masterpiece 'The Nightwatch'.

Greenaway's sensuous film 'Nightwatching,' screened at the Venice film festival on Thursday, explores the three women in Rembrandt's life and the influence of his home life on his painting.

It also offers an explanation for the 'riches to rags' story of the 17th-century Dutch master of light and shadow.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 6, 2007 (AFP) - Leading Hong Kong director Johnnie To on Thursday was to reveal the 'surprise' entry to this year's Venice film festival -- 'Mad Detective,' his latest police thriller.

Starring Andy On, the fast-moving film co-directed by Wai Ka Fai sneaks up on you from a standard plotline of a rookie cop teaming up with a former officer -- in this case a schizophrenic played by Lau Ching Wan -- to hunt down a serial killer.

As the plot develops, it turns into a psychological teaser that blurs the line between truth and lies, reality and delusion.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 6, 2007 (AFP) - French actress Fanny Ardant, despite a furore over her praise for Red Brigades leader Renato Curcio, will be on hand at the Venice film festival Thursday as the star of Italian director Vincenzo Marra's 'L'Ora di Punta' (The Rush Hour).

A demonstration is planned against Ardant, who stirred up passions last month by describing the founder of Italy's disbanded Marxist-Leninist group as a 'hero' in a magazine interview. She apologised, but the family of a victim has filed a suit against her.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 5, 2007 (AFP) - US director Tim Burton, the master of the macabre, became the youngest recipient of the Golden Lion for career achievement at the Venice film festival on Wednesday.

'This is the most amazing experience,' the 49-year-old said upon receiving the award. 'It's such an honour.' The Venice festival has 'always been about movies, not business,' he said. 'It's always had a special place in my heart.'

VENICE, Italy, Sept 5, 2007 (AFP) - Master of the macabre, US director Tim Burton became the youngest person to receive the Golden Lion for career achievement at the Venice film festival on Wednesday.

'This is the most amazing experience I've had,' the 49-year-old said upon receiving the award. 'It's such an honour.'

He said the Venice festival had 'always been about movies, not business. It's always had a special place in my heart.'

VENICE, Italy, Sept 5, 2007 (AFP) - Master of the macabre, US director Tim Burton was set to become the youngest person to receive the Golden Lion for career achievement at the Venice film festival on Wednesday.

'I'm very honoured,' the 49-year-old Burton said ahead of the ceremony. 'It means a lot to me. Hopefully it just inspires me to keep going.'

Burton may be the youngest winner of the award, 'but I'm older than I seem,' quipped the creator of 'Beetlejuice' (1988), 'Edward Scissorhands' (1990) and 'Sleepy Hollow' (1999).

VENICE, Italy, Sept 5, 2007 (AFP) - 'Mad Detective' by leading Hong Kong director Johnnie To along with Wai Ka Fai has been selected as the 'surprise film' to be unspooled Wednesday at the Venice film festival.

The work is a 'traditional Hong Kong police film with a twist,' Wai said in a statement. 'Our hero eschews science and reason. ... Instead, he possesses the supernatural ability to look into the darkest places of people's minds.'

VENICE, Italy, Sept 5, 2007 (AFP) - Japanese director Takashi Miike was to present his raucous take on the spaghetti western, 'Sukiyaki Western Django,' late Wednesday at the Venice film festival.

Takashi offers his eastern version in the year that the festival offers a retrospective on the genre.

The title of Miike's film refers to the Sergio Corbucci's 1966 cult classic 'Django', which starred Italian actor Franco Nero.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 5, 2007 (AFP) - A 3-D makeover of Tim Burton's 1993 film 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' was to screen Wednesday after the US director accepts the Venice film festival's career achievement award.

Spectators will be issued with special glasses to view the 3-D version, created by Henry Selick, of the hit musical fantasy in which the Pumpkin King of Halloween tries to take over Christmas by kidnapping Santa Claus.

Just to make sure the glasses are in working order, an in-your-face jack-o-lantern will leap off the screen as the film begins.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 5, 2007 (AFP) - A 3-D makeover of Tim Burton's 1993 film 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' screens Wednesday as the US director gets set to accept the Venice film festival's career achievement award.

Spectators will be issued special glasses to view the 3-D version, created by Henry Selick, of the musical fantasy in which the Pumpkin King tries to take over Christmas by kidnapping Santa Claus.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 4, 2007 (AFP) - 'I'm Not There,' a biopic of folk icon Bob Dylan in which he is conspicuously absent but omnipresent, should 'wash over you like a dream', the film's director Todd Haynes said Tuesday.

Viewers should not 'get too bogged down in the literal connections to Dylan and let it take you somewhere', Haynes told reporters of his ambitious work that channels Dylan through seven characters and premiered at the Venice Film Festival.

'Let it wash over you and sort of take you like a dream,' he said.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 4, 2007 (AFP) - The spirit of Bob Dylan came to Venice on Tuesday, channelled through seven characters in the Todd Haynes film 'I'm Not There,' while Italian director Andrea Porporati unveiled a bittersweet Mafia tale.

The Haynes biopic with a difference is 'inspired by the music and the many lives of Bob Dylan,' a narrator says at the start of the film.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 3, 2007 (AFP) - Quirky US director Wes Anderson drew heavily on his own family experiences for his brotherly bonding odyssey 'The Darjeeling Limited' that premiered Monday at the Venice film festival.

In the film, a trio of brothers embark on a train journey across India in search of each other, their mother and themselves in Anderson's whimsical adventure flick that includes a cameo by Bill Murray as a businessman who may or may not be their mystery father.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 3, 2007 (AFP) - Hollywood megastar Brad Pitt angered photographers by refusing to remove his sunglasses during a photo call at the Venice film festival, earning him the sobriquet 'Pitt Bullo' in the Italian press.

Pitt, wearing what was described as 'an indifferent smile,' rejected repeated requests by the photo corps to remove the glasses, then passed them to his co-star Casey Affleck, who put them on.

The photographers left the shoot en masse in protest.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 3, 2007 (AFP) - US movie star actor Richard Gere, an impassioned supporter of the Dalai Lama, called on China on Monday to 'be open' about its human rights record in the run-up to the 2008 Olympic Games.

'I don't call for a boycott, but a declaration of the truth. If China wants to be a host of the Olympics they also have to be open about what's going on in the country,' Gere said on the sidelines of the Venice film festival.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 3, 2007 (AFP) - Oscar-nominated actor Owen Wilson is 'doing very well' following a suicide attempt last week, Wes Anderson, the director of the star's most recent film, said here Monday.

'Owen wishes he could be with us. We all miss having him. Obviously, he's been through quite a lot this week. He's doing very well, he's making us laugh,' Anderson told reporters at the Venice Film Festival.

'We wish to protect his privacy and his wish to keep his right to speak for himself,' he added.

VENICE, Italy, Sept 3, 2007 (AFP) - British director Ken Loach, whose film 'It's a Free World' shown at the Venice film festival explores the exploitation of migrant workers, says cheap labour is 'at the heart of the British economy.'

In an interview with AFP, he adds: 'The government has to subvert its own legislation that sets a minimum wage, but it makes certain that the minimum wages won't be paid, because if it were, the price of food, the price of clothes would rise, inflation would go through the roof and the economy would be out of balance.'

VENICE, Italy, Sept 3, 2007 (AFP) - Quirky US director Wes Anderson will unveil his fraternal bonding odyssey 'The Darjeeling Limited' at the Venice film festival on Monday.

Three brothers embark on a train journey across India in search of each other, their mother and themselves in this whimsical adventure flick.

Also Monday, China's Jiang Wen will offer 'Taiyang Zhaochang Shengqi' (The Sun Also Rises), a quartet of stories that dovetail together in the end.