Colin Firth wins ‘best actor’ at Venice Film Festival

The former Gucci designer Tom Ford has kicked off his new career as a filmmaker by confounding the critics at the Venice film festival with a first feature - A Single Man - that proved to be as substantial as it was stylish. Its premiere on Friday received plaudits all round - and won its star, the English actor Colin Firth, the festival's best actor award.

Firth took the prize for his portrayal of George, a gay English professor mourning the death in a car crash of his longtime partner in 1960s Los Angeles. The film was adapted by Ford from the 1964 Christopher Isherwood novel of the same name and co-stars Julianne Moore as George's best woman friend, Charley. The English actor Matthew Goode appears in flashback as George's lover, Jim.

It is quite a change of pace for Firth, who first came to prominence 14 years ago in the heartthrob role of  Mr Darcy in the BBC's Pride and Prejudice. He took on the role at Ford's personal request. "There was no chat with my agent - an email just popped up in my inbox from Tom Ford," he said. "After talking to him, I realised this wasn't just a vanity project for a fashion designer."

Firth, 49, who is married to an Italian, gave his acceptance speech in Italian and called it "possibly the greatest honour of my life".

The film itself also won an unofficial prize at the weekend - the 'Queer Golden Lion' awarded to the best gay-themed movie screening at Venice. Whether Ford will be thrilled by that is debatable: although openly gay, the 48-year-old designer-turned-director had made a big play of the film being much more than a gay story.

"It's really a film about love and isolation that I think all of us feel, so it is very universal," he said in Venice before the screening. ·