The Venice Film Festival wrapped up on Saturday after 10 days of world premieres, celebrity red carpets and some of the most political films the event has seen in years.

From George Clooney collecting a lifetime achievement award to a controversial documentary about the war in Gaza, this year’s festival mixed Hollywood glamour with hard-hitting content.

Big names on the red carpet

The opening days saw plenty of star power as Clooney (65) picked up his lifetime achievement award, held a masterclass and attended an event about AI in film.

“When you start reflecting on the years, you realise you really didn’t have a career as much as a series of happy accidents,” Clooney said after collecting his award.

Other A-list names included Penélope Cruz and her husband Javier Bardem, who starred together in “Bunker”, a film about a marriage falling apart.

Cruz cried at the premiere as the audience gave them a 16-minute standing ovation. When asked if their on-screen characters resembled their real marriage, Bardem replied curtly: “Nothing.”

Gallagher brothers reunite

One of the biggest crowds turned out for “Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger”, a behind-the-scenes look at how British brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher ended their 15-year feud to reform the band.

The Manchester-born siblings arrived by speedboat, looking like the picture of brotherly love after burying their differences for a reunion tour last year.

The documentary, overseen by “Peaky Blinders” creator Steven Knight, captures the frosty moment when the duo met for their first rehearsal with barely a word or look exchanged between them.

Controversial Gaza film breaks records

“NAZA”, a documentary by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor about Israel’s killing of civilians in Gaza, earned a record 25 minutes of applause at its premiere on Thursday

Through anonymous interviews with Israeli officers and soldiers, the film reveals how an AI surveillance system identifies targets for airstrikes and the hundreds of innocent civilians considered collateral damage.

Hollywood actress Susan Sarandon revealed during a press conference that studios still refuse to cast her because of her outspoken criticism of the war.

Billionaires under the spotlight

Elon Musk featured in the festival’s longest film, “Musk”, from US documentary maker Alex Gibney, which takes a critical look at the billionaire.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch was the subject of Danny Boyle’s “Ink”, which recounts the heady days of London’s newspaper industry on Fleet Street in the 1960s when Murdoch’s tabloid The Sun jolted British journalism with sensationalism, sex and scandal.

French director Florian Zeller’s “Bunker” featured an enjoyable cameo from Paul Dano, who appears as a character clearly inspired by Mark Zuckerberg.

ALSO READ: Venice film festival opens with Clooney honour and Gaza documentaries

Women directors missing

Only one woman director, Denmark’s May el-Toukhy, was originally included in the main competition. This grew to two with the late addition of “NAZA” and its woman co-director Rachel Szor.

Festival head Alberto Barbera blamed the shortage on fewer submissions by women filmmakers and their lower quality.

Ironically, el-Toukhy’s film “Kvinde Ukendt” (Woman Unknown) tells the story of a woman who is unseen and voiceless in her male-dominated home and society after World War II.

Other dark films in the programme included “Primetime” with British star Robert Pattinson about the host of US paedophile-hunting TV show “To Catch A Predator”, and “Wild Horse Nine”, a thriller with John Malkovich playing a regretful CIA officer.

Russian-born director Ilya Khrzhanovsky presented “DAU”, a vast experimental cinema project that chronicles the troubled father of the Soviet nuclear programme, Lev Landau.