Russian master Andrei Konchalovsky (Siberiade) tackles the Holocaust in what initially appears to be the rather oddly titled drama Paradise. Shot in the boxy and claustrophobic style known as the Academy aspect ratio (like the recent Son of Saul) and in period-appropriate black and white, this is a drama about an aristocratic Russian woman and her complex relationships with two men who were part of the Nazi hierarchy.

After Olga, a Vogue fashion editor, is caught hiding two Jewish children in her Paris apartment, she finds herself fighting against a French Nazi officer and, later, an SS member in the concentration camp where she ends up. Both relationships have a sexual frisson-"shudder" is probably a better word-and the film's exploration of the intersection of intimacy, politics and power is further complicated by austerely photographed scenes that play like confessional interviews that might just have been shot in the titular location. Classical in its staging but daring in its technical and narrative choices, Paradise demands to be reckoned with.

Winner: Best Director, Venice 

Andrei Konchalovsky