Russian actress Natalia Kudryashova has won a prize for her performance in the film The Man Who Surprised Everyone at the prestigious Venice Film Festival.
Kudryashova on September 8 was announced as the winner of the leading female role in the Horizons Section, which honors feature films and documentaries representing new trends in cinema.
"We have brought a complicated film," the 39-year-old actress said after receiving the award.
"In Russia, it is difficult for us to make bold movies, but it seems to me we have begun and, I hope, will continue," she added.
The film was directed by Natalia Merkulova and Aleksei Chupov and tells the story of a change of sexual identity and an incurably ill man's fight for life, set in Siberia.
The man, who discovers he has cancer, attempts to trick death by taking the identity of a woman.
The film was backed by the Russian Culture Ministry and received financial support from Estonia and France.
Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron won the Golden Lion top prize for his film Roma, which focused on an indigenous maid working for a middle-class family in Mexico City in 1971.
