In a stunning turn of events that shocked absolutely no one who has been paying attention to, well, history, May el-Toukhy's Woman Unknown has won the Golden Lion at the Venice film festival. The Egyptian-Danish director's film, set in the immediate aftermath of Danish liberation from Nazi occupation, follows a young housemaid, Marie (Mathilde Arcel), who is about to marry her widowed employer but is anxious about him discovering a shameful secret: during the war, Marie had an intimate relationship with a German soldier. The Guardian's film critic called it "elegantly appointed" and compared it to Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, because nothing says "fun family outing" like a Hitchcock comparison.

Arcel also took home the Volpi Cup for best actress, presumably for her ability to look both anxious and elegantly appointed simultaneously. In an emotional acceptance speech, El-Toukhy thanked jury president Maggie Gyllenhaal, who had addressed the underrepresentation of female film-makers at the start of the festival. Woman Unknown was the only film in competition solely directed by a woman, because of course it was. "This film has been incredibly challenging to make financially, logistically, emotionally," El-Toukhy said. "And what kept me going was the urgent need to illuminate the unknown women of our common history, to make them known. And especially tonight, I feel like I succeeded in doing just that." A sentiment that is both moving and a damning indictment of the industry, but mostly moving.

The runner-up grand jury prize went to Korean director Lee Chang-dong's Possible Love, a simmering tale of an unhappy married couple befriended by a documentary maker and her wealthy husband, which drew rave reviews. Because nothing says "cinema" like wealthy people being passive-aggressive.

The special jury prize, Venice's equivalent of a bronze medal, went to Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor's documentary NAZA, about Israel's AI-powered mass killing of civilians in Gaza. The film, produced by the Guardian, is based on testimony from 24 Israeli military insiders interviewed anonymously at night on rooftops in Tel Aviv. It takes its title from an acronym used by the intelligence service to indicate how many civilians it expects to die in an airstrike on Gaza. "It's honestly not very easy to stand here, thinking of all the Israeli politicians and journalists who are now attacking this film and denying it without even seeing it," Abraham said when accepting his prize. "So much is being done not to look at reality." The day after NAZA's premiere, the Israeli military "categorically denied" the allegations made in the film, because of course they did.

The Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovsky won the Silver Lion for best director for the visually stunning DAU, a biopic of Nobel prize-winning quantum physicist Lev Landau, who was pressured into working on the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons programme. The inclusion of Khrzhanovsky's film in the Venice lineup was criticised by the Ukrainian government in the run-up to the festival, over its lead actor Teodor Currentzis's refusal to condemn the full-scale invasion, and for having received funding from a Russian businessman later sanctioned by the US and Ukraine. DAU was filmed in Kharkiv between 2008 and 2011, before the start of the conflict. At a press conference on the Lido, Khrzhanovsky said: "The only thing I can wish for is peace and success for the Ukrainian government to succeed in the best possible way, to save the country and to win this war." A statement that is either diplomatic or just vague enough to be both.

John Malkovich took home the Volpi Cup for best actor for his role as an erratic veteran CIA officer whose cancer diagnosis leads him to question the morality of his profession, in Martin McDonagh's Wild Horse Nine. The 72-year-old US actor was not present in Venice and accepted his award via video link. "I am humbled to be chosen for this award, which has been given to so many wonderful actors over the past 83 iterations of the Venice film festival," Malkovich said, presumably from a location where he was not wearing shoes.

In other awards that we must mention for completeness: Best screenplay went to Un Bon Petit Soldat ("A Good Little Soldier"), by Stéphane Brizé, Coralie Amédéo, and Olivier Gorce. The Marcello Mastroianni award for best young actor went to Malou Khebizi for 15/18 (A Place to Heal). The Armani Beauty audience award went to Eu contez ("I Matter") by Alina Șerban. And the Luigi De Laurentiis award for debut film went to La maison du vent ("House of the Wind") by Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu. Because even in a festival dominated by heavy themes and geopolitical controversy, someone still had to win the "best debut film" award, and that someone was Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu.