Venice, Sep 13 (DPA) Lebanon, a war drama by Israeli director Samuel Maoz, Saturday won the Golden Lion for best film at the Venice Film Festival.

The film is set during the first day of Israel's 1982 conflict in Lebanon. It is shot from the perspective of soldiers holed up in a tank - a claustrophobic experience audiences are made to share by the way the film is shot.

Speaking at a festival news conference earlier this week, Maoz said he was so traumatized by his real-life experience as a young soldier during the Lebanon war that that it took him 25 years to muster the strength to make the movie.

'Women Without Men', another film about conflict in the Middle East - this time the story of four women set against the backdrop of Iran's 1953 CIA-backed coup d'etat - won its Iranian-born visual artist Shirin Neshat, the Silver Lion award for best director.

The Festival's Coppa Volpi prize for best female actress went to Russian Ksenia Rappoport, who plays a waitress who meets a former policeman on a speed date in Italian director Giuseppe Capotondi's noir thriller, 'La Doppia Ora'.

British actor Colin Firth picked up the Coppa Volpi for best male actor for his role as a discreet college professor coming to terms with the death of his gay lover in A Single Man, US fashion designer Tom Ford's debut as film director.

The jury, headed by Taiwan-born Ang Lee, bestowed its Special Jury award to 'Soul Kitchen', a romantic comedy directed by Turkish-descended German director, Fatih Akin.