Park Chan-wook’s acclaimed No Other Choice was tipped to win the coveted main prize at the festival this year, but ended up going home empty handed.
The 82nd Venice Film festival ended in surprise last night when the coveted Golden Lion, which audiences speculated would be awarded to festival favourites No Other Choice (dir. Park Chan-wook) or The Voice of Hind Rajab (dir. Kaouther Ben Hania) , was given to Jim Jarmusch’s gentle three-part family comedy Father Mother Sister Brother.
There was particular controversy in the shutting out of Park Chan-wook’s film, which premiered early in the festival and remained, until the end, one of the most acclaimed and consistently buzzy features in the competition. Defending the decision, jury head Alexander Payne said, “[No Other Choice] simply wasn’t in the final eight, which breaks our hearts. It really does. We loved many films which were not represented in the final eight.”
There were still a few pleasant surprises amidst what some consider a controversial Golden Lion win for Jarmusch. Outside of the main competition, Thai director Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit took home the festival’s Fandazione Fai Persona Lavoro Ambiente award for his film Human Resource, one of the gems of this year’s programme. In the Horizons strand, Italian actress Benedetta Porcaroli, who impressed in Carolina Cavalli’s sophomore feature The Kidnapping of Arabella, won best actress.
In the main competition, Benny Safdie took home the Silver Lion Best Director award for his Mark Kerr boxing biopic The Smashing Machine, a win which might indicate that we’ll be seeing more of the younger Safdie brother, and his lead actor Dwayne Johnson, come awards season. Paolo Sorrentino mainstay Toni Servillo won Best Actor for his role in Sorrentino’s La Grazia, while upcoming Chinese actress Xin Zhilei took home a Best Actress award for her performance in The Sun Rises on Us All.
The Voice of Hind Rajab, Kaouther Ben Hania’s urgent, uncompromising features about the killing of a five year old Palestinian girl by the IDF on the Gaza strip, didn’t go home empty handed though, with Hania taking home the Silver Lion Jury Prize, the second most prestigious at the festival. Much has rightfully been said about the emptiness of symbolic gestures like standing ovations and trophy-giving while Israel continues their genocide of the Palestinian people with impunity, but Hania took advantage of her time on stage to speak about the power of cinema to preserve Palestinian stories. “Cinema cannot bring Hind back”, the director said as she accepted the award. “Nor can it erase the atrocity committed toward her. Nothing can restore what was taken. But, cinema can preserve her voice and make it resonate across borders. Because her story is not hers alone, it is tragically the story of an entire people enduring genocide inflicted by the criminal Israeli regine, that acts with impunity.”
You can find the full list of winners below:
Golden Lion
Father Mother Sister Brother (dir: Jim Jarmusch)
Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize
The Voice of Hind Rajab (dir: Kaouther Ben Hania)
Silver Lion Best Director
Benny Safdie, The Smashing Machine
Special Jury Prize
Sotte le Nuvole (dir: Gianfranco Rosi)
Best Screenplay
Valérie Donzelli and Gilles Marchand, A Pied d’oeuvre (dir. Valérie Donzelli)
Best Actor
Toni Servillo, La Grazia (dir. Paolo Sorrentino)
Best Actress
Xin Zhilei, The Sun Rises on Us All (dir. Can Shangjun)
Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best New Young Actor or Actress
Luna Wedler, Silent Friend (dir. Ildikó Enyedi)
Lion of the Future – Luigi De Laurentiis Award for a Debut Film
Short Summer (dir: Nastia Korkia)
HORIZONS
Best Film
En El Camino (dir: David Pablos)
Best Director
Anuparna Roy, Songs of Forgotten Trees
Special Jury Prize
Lost Land (dir: Akio Fujimoto)
Best Actor
Giacomo Covi, A Year of School (dir. Laura Samani)
Best Actress
Benedetta Porcaroli, The Kidnapping of Arabella (dir. Carolina Cavalli)
Best Screenplay
Ana Cristina Barragan, Hiedra (dir. Ana Cristina Barragan)
Best Short Film
Without Kelly (dir: Lovisa Siren)
VENICE CLASSICS
Best Documentary On Cinema
Mata Hari (dirs: Joe Beshenkovsky, James A. Smith)
Best Restored Film
Bashu, The Little Stranger (dir: Bahram Beyzaie)
VENICE IMMERSIVE
Grand Prize
The Clouds are Two Thousand Meters Up (dir: Singing Chen)
Special Jury Prize
Less Than 5g of Saffron (dir: Négar Motevalymeidanshah)
Achievement Prize
A Long Goodbye (dir. Kate Voet, Victor Maes)
FANDAZIONE FAI PERSONA LAVORO AMBIENTE
Human Resource (dir. Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit)
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