Gay cowboy film won in Venice

Ang Lee's tale of homosexual love between two cowboys in the conservative West of the 1960s won the Venice Film Festival's top award Saturday.

"Brokeback Mountain," starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, topped 19 other films, including favorite "Good Night, and Good Luck," George Clooney's black-and-white movie set in the McCarthy era.

Receiving the Golden Lion, Lee described his movie as a "great American love story" that is "unique and so universal."The film is based on a novella by "The Shipping News" author E. Annie Proulx. One of the stars of Clooney's film, David Strathairn, got the top acting award for men for his portrayal of journalist Edward R. Murrow.

Top actress was Giovanna Mezzogiorno for "La Bestia nel Cuore" ("The Beast in the Heart"), a film that tells the story of an apparently happy woman who suddenly is plagued by dreams that reveal a dark part of her childhood, when she was abused by her father, Chicago Tribune reports.