Amid a busy fall festival season, all eyes were back on the Lido Saturday night as Woman Unknown won the Venice Film Festival‘s coveted Golden Lion for best film.
The honors were handed out by the international jury, headed up by U.S. filmmaker Maggie Gyllenhaal, as stars dressed to the nines one last time for this year’s final, glitzy Lido red carpet event. Among the other big winners were DAU director Ilya Khrzhanovsky who took home the Silver Lion for Best Director, Lee Chang-dong’s Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize for Possible Love, and NAZA‘s Special Jury Prize.
May el-Toukhy’s stylish depiction of post-World War II Denmark came out triumphant. The film focuses on a maid (Mathilde Arcel) whose past during the Nazi occupation threatens to unravel her future. El-Toukhy, just one of two female filmmakers in competition this year, told THR in a sit-down pre-festival interview: “I’ve worked 16 hours a day for more than a year. I’ve spent all my savings. I’ve used every part of me to make this film and all the resources, all the muscle power I have.”
The Danish filmmaker continued up on stage: “Making films is very collaborative, which requires sacrifices, and so thank you all for helping me tell the story. For me personally, Woman Unknown talks about the woman’s body as a battlefield. At the same time, the film tells the story of invisible women who are not and who do not have a voice… Thank you to the jury for this wonderful honor,” she added. “Thank you especially to you, Maggie, because you use your voice [to talk about] the lack of equal opportunities for the directors in the [competition].
Gyllenhaal told Venice at the jury’s early presser about the lack of women in competition: “There’s a systemic problem… It’s much harder for women to get their films financed. Also, could it be possible that the things that women, having had a different experience of being alive in the world, want to make movies about are not always deemed high art?”
Elsewhere during Saturday’s awards, acclaimed Korean auteur Lee Chang-dong won the Silver Lion, Grand Jury Prize for social drama Possible Love. Following a struggling working-class family and the well-to-do documentarian who picks them as a subject for her new film, his film received some of the best reviews out of Venice, with most, like The Hollywood Reporter‘s David Rooney, singling out the film’s “superlative ensemble” including veteran Korean actors Jeon Do-yeon and Sul Kyung-gu alongside rising stars Zo In-sung and Cho Yeo-jeong.
Netflix will be confident of its award season chances for the feature, which has been selected by South Korea as its pick for the best international feature race. “Without the patience and faith of so many people, this film would not have been possible,” Lee said while collecting the award.
NAZA, a documentary from Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, and a late addition to the Venice lineup, has won the Special Jury Prize after a record-breaking 25-minute standing ovation at its Thursday night premiere. The Venice sensation features testimony from 24 Israeli military officers outlining the systems and protocols they allege Israel uses to target and kill civilians in Gaza. Its title, NAZA, comes from an acronym the Israeli military uses as a shorthand for civilian casualties.
“It’s certainly not easy for us to be here,” began Abraham as they accepted the trophy to raucous applause. “I’m thinking of all the people, the Israeli politicians [who] are attacking, this film, the journalists attacking it without even having seen it… The reality is that since this film began, in the space of these 10 days, the Israelis have killed at least six children, a three-year-old girl in a school, two sisters at home who were sleeping. The officials, the agents of Israeli intelligence, have told us about these attacks, which are systemic,” he continued.
“There are really policies that are, in fact, based on the dehumanization of the Palestinians. I want to be really clear about this. It has been documented and known thanks to Palestinian journalists, [and] more than 200 [journalists] have been killed in Gaza by the Israelis, their voices have been denied and silenced,” he said. “We believe that denying a crime causes [it] to be perpetrated, and that’s why it’s important for us that the Israelis see this film, [and] especially here in Italy because your government and the German government are blocking pressure on Israel that can end this. That Americans watch it because that country is funding much of the killing,” Abraham added, before thanking giving his thanks to the producers.
Riding the wave of immense Oscar buzz, John Malkovich claimed the prestigious Volpi Cup for best actor for his performance in Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine. The pitch-black buddy comedy co-starring Sam Rockwell as CIA operatives in Chile in the 1960s was arguably the biggest crowd-pleaser in Venice this year. The movie, which is going out worldwide via Searchlight Pictures, boasts a great outing from Malkovich who gives a sharp and surprisingly touching performance as a veteran CIA agent facing a self-reckoning.
Malkovich, who wasn’t in attendance to accept the prize in person, told the crowd via a pre-recorded video: “I am really glad to have been chosen for this award which has been given to many actors.. Thanks to Martin McDonagh for having written an incredible screenplay and for his exceptional direction and for having given me, in fact, the opportunity to play this fantastic role. Thanks to all my colleagues, especially Sam Rockwell,” he added. “I’m sorry, unfortunately, I can’t be there with you. I would have loved to be there, but I am currently filming another film.”
Danish star Arcel picked up the Volpi Cup for best actress for her role in el-Toukhy’s Woman Unknown. “This is my first lead role and it’s the first time I’ve participated in a film festival and so I’m really extremely honored, and I’m really lucky to be here,” said an emotional Arcel. “I am truly fortunate to be in Venice with you, people who are really the best filmmakers, actors, and actresses in the world, whom I’ve watched all my life.”
The big winner from the Horizons (Orizzonti) section is Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni’s Diane in the Loop, a Belgian feature about a woman who sets out avenging her mother when she finds out she was raped three years before Diane’s birth.
Also in the Horizons section, Riccardo Scamarcio won best actor for Children of the Monkey, Laleh Marzban became emotional upon receiving the best actress prize for Falling House, and Jacqueline Lentzou nabbed best director for A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra, a film inspired by the real-life killing of a teenager by police in Athens in 2008.
Low-market tabloid sleaze were the subjects of two of the starry Venice competition entries this year. Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime, starring Robert Pattinson as To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen, divided critics, though most, including The Hollywood Reporter, were impressed by Pattinson’s performance. Critics were kinder to Danny Boyle’s Ink, an adaptation of James Graham’s stage play about Rupert Murdoch’s takeover of The Sun newspaper and the creation of his right-wing media empire. THR‘s chief film critic David Rooney said the film, starring Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy, remained “a chronicle more than a critique” but was still “vigorously entertaining.”
Florian Zeller’s psychological drama Bunker was also well-received. It stars Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem as a couple whose outwardly happy marriage is tested when Bardem, a star architect, is offered a lucrative commission to build an underground bunker for a tech billionaire.
See below the list of winners from the 83rd Venice International Film Festival, as they come in:
Woman Unknown, May el-Toukhy
Possible Love, Lee Chang-dong
Ilya Khrzhanovsky, DAU
NAZA, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor
A Good Little Soldier, Stéphane Brizé, Coralie Amédéo and Olivier Gorce
John Malkovich, Wild Horse Nine
Mathilde Arcel, Woman Unknown
Malou Khebizi, A Place to Heal
House of the Wind, Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu
I Matter, Alina Serban
Diane in the Loop, Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni
Jacqueline Lentzou, A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra
House of the Wind, Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu
Riccardo Scamarcio, Children of the Monkey
Laleh Marzban, Falling House
Children of the Monkey, Tommaso Landucci
A Few Moments of Happiness, Shaden Safieddine Tazi
Long Night of 1943, Florestano Vancini
The Pigeon Ring, Shixin Tao and Yuqi Zhang
Out of the Ashes, Rory Mitchell and Nonny de la Peña
Empire at Sea, Peter Flaherty
George Clooney, Ellen Burstyn