Actress Imelda Staunton also won best actress for the title role in the film. With the win at the Venice Film Festival, pundits now predict that the Mike Leigh directed film is now in serious consideration for Oscar glory. 

The film is set in 1950s London where the title character is a working-class mother that also performs illegal back-alley abortions for poor women. After one of her patients nearly dies from the procedure, Vera Drake then has to face the British legal system to answer for her illegal actions. 
 

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