Venice triumph for Fassbender

Michael Fassbender won the Best Actor prize at the Venice film festival last night for his controversial role in Steve McQueen's drama Shame, in which he plays a successful New York executive tortured by his obsession with sexual images and brief sexual encounters.

He spends much of the film naked, engaged in increasingly unhappy acts of sex in hotel rooms. He also struggles to maintain a relationship with his visiting sister, played by Carey Mulligan.

Accepting the award, Fassbender, 34, said: "It's nice to take a chance on work you think is relevant and hope other people find it relevant. Venice is a festival with a wonderful tradition and it is humbling to win when the competition is from so many other amazing talents."

Shame is the second time he has collaborated with McQueen. He played Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands in McQueen’s controversial drama Hunger, which won the Camera d'Or for best debut film at Cannes in 2008.

He is currently starring as Mr Rochester in the new UK release Jane Eyre, and will shortly be seen as Carl Jung in David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method.

Fassbender's win represented a highly successful festival for British cinema – he was joined on the winner's stage by Robbie Ryan, ho won the Best Cinematography award for his atmospheric work on Andrea Arnold's daring adaptation of Wuthering Heights.