Venice, Golden Lion for ‘All The Beauty and the Bloodshed’, silver for Guadagnino. Special Jury Prize to Panahi – Cinema

Full theaters, crowds out of young people, powerful, courageous, risky films, strong themes and new talents to launch. The female directors to dominate the scene, to win many prizes from the Golden Lion to LAURA POITRAS for the documentary film ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHEDthe newcomer ALICE DIOP for SAINT OMER Silver Lion – Grand Jury Prize and Lion of the Future for Best First Feature. And a great absentee evoked by all, the dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi detained in Iran, who received an exciting standing ovation.

Venice 79 closes the curtain, an edition of “extraordinary normality” as the godmother Rocio Munoz Morales defined it, referring to the modalities in which the festival took place after the pandemic (which in any case left at the hotel tonight, for Covid, a juror, the Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro).

Italy, present in mass, brings home an important prize just like last year it was for Paolo Sorrentino and E ‘was the hand of God: the Silver Lion, the award for director LUCA GUADAGNINO for BONES AND ALL, a beautiful film, highly anticipated, also by the exhibitors for the box office, which is an example of one of the strong directions that cinema is taking: internationalization, the production mix with many countries. Bones and all, shot in America, with an all-American cast with Timothèe Chalamet and Taylor Russell (the actress won the Mastroianni award for new talents), is produced by the same director with his Frenesy Film and the American company Per Capita Productions. with The Apartment by Lorenzo Mieli and many others and will be in the hall with Vision from 23 November. “Thanks to the director Barbera who protects filmmakers, – said Guadagnino going up on stage – he chose me 20 years ago with my first job. Making films has always been my life from the first to super 8. Bones and all celebrates a special marriage between Italy and America and is testimony to a cinema that knows no geography, knows no borders. I dedicate this award to Mohammad Rasoulof and Jafar Panahi, arrested in Iran. Long live the subversion, long live the cinema “. Panahi, who is facing a six-year prison sentence for ‘propaganda against the system’, was arrested on 11 July after going to the Tehran Public Prosecutor’s Office to get updates on the case of two other directors, Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa al-Ahmad, detained for a few days, he was ideally present, quoted several times.

The Golden Lion was won for the third year by a woman after Chloé Zhao of Nomadland and Audrey Diwan (who today awarded it as a juror): Laura Poitras, the American documentarian, who had won an Oscar in the 2015 for Citizenfour, enchanted the jury chaired by Julianne Moore with ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED. “This film – said Poitras – tells the struggle of the American photographer Nan Goldin against the Sackler family, owner of the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma, held responsible for the opioid epidemic in the United States. I have not met anyone with his exceptional courage. the award to her who inspired me and to journalists and filmmakers like Panahi who take risks with their work “. The film Leone d’oro 2022 will also be released in Italy, distributed by I Wonder Pictures.

The most intense moment of the evening was when on stage, to collect the Special Jury Prize a BEARS DO NOT EXIST of Panahi (from 6 October in the hall with Academy Two) two actors went up, excited and moved. “We are honored to accept this award for him and invite everyone to rise to the power of cinema in honor of Panahi,” said Mina Kavani. The strong themes were in many films, one in particular won Moore’s jury with two awards: Saint Omer by Alice Diop, the autobiographical story of a writer who follows the trial of a Senegalese immigrant accused of killing her daughter, entrusting her child to the sea. In theaters in November with Minerva Film she brings to the stage an ambiguous portrait of motherhood but also a different and non-stereotyped fresco of immigrant women in France. “This film is female. The silence on black women does not protect us and this evening it is interrupted here,” said Diop, a Frenchman of Senegalese origin like the Medea in her film.

The funniest moment was the connection with Colin Farrell in Los Angeles, the Irish actor who won the Volpi Cup took a zoom from his publicist’s kitchen. The other Coppa Volpi was Cate Blanchett, her second (she had won in 2007 with Todd Haynes’ I’m not here). “I would like to fill this cup with red wine – he said, dedicating the award for Todd Field’s Tar to the co-star Nina Hoss, to the little daughter who accompanied her on her return to the beach and” to the music that is always wonderful “. In the Italian booty there is also Vera Gemma, best actress at Horizons for the film about her, Vera, by Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel, the inevitable dedication “to my wonderful father Giuliano Gemma”. 90 years old, “even if he declares 79”, joked the president of the Biennale Roberto Cicutto, making an appointment for the 80 edition from 30 August 2023.