Guy Lodge Film CriticBefore this year’s Venice Film Festival comes to a close with Saturday’s announcement of the official selection awards, the fest’s autonomous sections got the ball rolling Friday with their own prizes.Coming out on top in the Venice Days program was Russian director Philipp Yuryev’s debut feature “The Whaler Boy,” an offbeat story of a teenage whale hunter on the Bering Strait, who sets out to meet the webcam model with whom he’s become obsessed.The film received the Director’s Award — which carries a cash prize of €20,000 ($23,668) for Yuryev and Paris-based sales agent Loco Films — from a jury headed by Nadav Lapid, the Israeli auteur who won last year’s Berlinale Golden Bear for “Synonyms.” Unusually, the jury’s.
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