The Venice Film Festival has never been the type of festival where the awards are particularly important – its gongs have never quite have the same marketability as the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or. Yet competition is fun; meaningless and irritating – but entertaining nonetheless.

I was delighted when it was announced that Golden Lion-winner Darren Aronofsky and director Todd Haynes would be on this year’s jury panel, and with high profile efforts such as Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Steve McQueen’s Shame locking horns with smaller efforts including Yorgos Lathimos’ Alps (Alpeis) and Vincent Paronnaud’s Poulet aux prunes for the main prize, competition will be fierce.

Below are CineVue’s VFF correspondents’ predictions for this year’s main prizes:

John Bleasdale

Golden Lion (Leone d’Oro): Shame (dir. Steve McQueen)
Silver Lion (Leone d’Argento): Alps (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)
Best Actor Volpi Cup (Coppa Volpi): Gary Oldman –Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (dir. Tomas Alfredson)
Best Actress Volpi Cup (Coppa Volpi): Kate Winslet – Carnage (Roman Polanski)

Jo-Ann Titmarsh

Golden Lion (Leone d’Oro): Poulet aux prunes (dir. Vincent Paronnaud)
Silver Lion (Leone d’Argento): Shame (dir. Steve McQueen)
Best Actor Volpi Cup (Coppa Volpi): Matthew McConaughey – Killer Joe (William Friedkin)
Best Actress Volpi Cup (Coppa Volpi): Deannie Yip – A Simple Life (dir. Ann Hui)

For more Venice Film Festival 2011 coverage, simply follow this link.