With the 83rd Venice Film Festival done and dusted, next up came the star-studded closing night and, of course, the awards. Ahead of the ceremony, frontrunners for the prestigious Golden Lion included Martin McDonagh’s tragicomic Wild Horse Nine; Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor’s searing, Gaza-set documentary NAZA; and Lee Chang-dong’s slow-burning drama Possible Love.
Meanwhile, when it comes to the acting prizes, the likes of Possible Love’s Jeon Do-yeon, Primetime’s Robert Pattinson, Wild Horse Nine’s John Malkovich, Bunker’s Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, and Bucking Fastard’s Rooney and Kate Mara seemed to be in the lead.
Venice is notoriously difficult to predict—just last year, Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab seemed to be a shoo-in for the Golden Lion, before Alexander Payne’s jury awarded that top prize to Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother instead. Still, it’s worth noting that, so far in the 21st century, English-speaking jury presidents (John Boorman, Quentin Tarantino, Annette Bening, Cate Blanchett, Julianne Moore, Damien Chazelle) have tended to choose English-language winners (Vera Drake, Somewhere, The Shape of Water, Nomadland, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, Poor Things).
(Notable exceptions include Darren Aronofsky, whose jury picked the German-language Faust; Michael Mann’s, which chose the Korean thriller Pietà; and Sam Mendes’s, which opted for the Filipino drama The Woman Who Left.) With Maggie Gyllenhaal heading up the jury this time, this track record, in theory, gave an early advantage to Wild Horse Nine.
In the end, some of the presumed favorites emerged victorious, but there were also plenty of big surprises. Below, browse the winners’ list in full.
Main Competition
Golden Lion: Woman Unknown, May el-Toukhy
Grand Jury Prize: Possible Love, Lee Chang-dong
Special Jury Prize: NAZA, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor
Silver Lion for Best Director: Ilya Khrzhanovsky, Dau
Volpi Cup for Best Actress: Mathilde Arcel, Woman Unknown
Volpi Cup for Best Actor: John Malkovich, Wild Horse Nine
Best Screenplay: Un bon petit soldat, Stéphane Brizé, Coralie Amédéo and Olivier Gorce
Marcello Mastroianni Award for emerging performer: Malou Khebizi, A Place to Heal
Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement: Ellen Burstyn and George Clooney
Orizzonti
Best Film: Un détour par Diane, Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni
Best Director: Jacqueline Lentzou, A day in the life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra
Special Jury Prize: La maison du vent, Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu
Best Actress: Laleh Marzban, Moragheb
Best Actor: Riccardo Scamarcio, I figli della scimmia
Best Screenplay: I figli della scimmia, Tommaso Landucci and Damiano Femfert
Best Short Film: Quelques instants de bonheur, Shaden Safieddine Tazi
Venice Spotlight
Armani Beauty Audience Award: I Matter, Alina Şerban
Lion of the Future
Luigi De Laurentiis Award for a Debut Film: La maison du vent, Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu
Venice Classics
Best Restored Film: La lunga notte del ’43, Florestano Vancini
Venice Immersive
Venice Immersive Achievement Prize: Empire at Sea, Peter Flaherty
Special Jury Prize: Out of the Ashes, Rory Mitchell and Nonny Peña
Grand Prize: The Pigeon Ring, Yuqi Zhang and Shixin Tao