VENICE, Italy, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- "There is a moment in every storyteller's life, no matter what age you are, when you will risk it all and do something different," Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro said Saturday evening after winning the Golden Lion Award with "The shape of water."
He told the audience in closing ceremony at the 74th edition of Venice Film Festival that "I want to dedicate this prize to every young Mexican filmmaker, or Latin American filmmaker, who is dreaming to do something in the fantastic genre."
"All I know is that if you remain pure, and stay with your faith - whatever you have faith in, and in my case is monsters - eventually things will go right," he added.
Del Toro accepted the prize from the hands of American actress Annette Bening, who chaired the international jury, during an awarding ceremony held at the Cinema Palace on the Venice Lido.
"The Shape of Water" is a story told in the form of a fairy tale, about a mute woman who falls for a mysterious, amphibious creature captured in water depths, and subjected to a secret experiment by the U.S. military.
With Sally Hawkins playing the main character, the story is set in the United States in the early 1960s against the backdrop of the Cold War era.
"The shape of water" was one among 21 features vying this year for the Golden Lion, which is the highest prize conferred in Venice.
Besides the 21 world premieres running in the main competition, this 74th edition featured 22 works out of competition -- including eight documentaries and two medium-length films -- another 19 in the Horizons section devoted to new cinema trends, and 22 projects competing in the new section devoted to Virtual Reality.
