The Italian documentary Sacro GRA took the top prize at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday.
The film, directed by Gianfranco Rosi, won the prestigious Golden Lion award, Entertainment Weekly reports. Sacro GRA is the first documentary to ever win the Golden Lion.
The documentary is about Rome's ring road outside the capital and those who live and work around it.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Sacro GRA was not considered a front-runner for the Golden Lion and is the first Italian film to win it in the past 15 years.
Other prize winners included Miss Violence, directed by Alexandros Avranas, which won the Silver Lion for best director. The film's lead actor Themis Panou also won the Coppa Volpa for Best Actor. He played the father in a family that has to deal with their daughter's suicide.
Tsai Ming-liang, a previous Golden Lion winner, took home the new Jury Prize for JiaoYou (Stray Dogs). The movie focuses on the difficulties in life for a man and his two children living outside of society in the Taiwanese capital.
Jury President Bernardo Bertolucci said he was "looking to be surprised," and Sacro GRA certainly was "a surprising film."
Rosi commented that "I could never have expected to win such an important prize with a documentary."
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