The 81st Venice Film Festival awards ceremony is in full swing after a sweltering week and a half on the Lido.
The prestigious Golden Lion, awarded to the best film, is up for grabs, as are best director, best actor and actress, best screenplay and the grand jury prize, led by French actress and this year’s jury president Isabelle Huppert.
The first awards of the night were the Venice Immersives, the first of which went to Barry Gene Murphy and May Abdalla for Impulse: Playing with Reality, a mixed-reality documentary. Shortly after, Gwenael François’ Oto’s Planet won the Venice Immersive Special Jury Prize, and Ito Meikyū won Boris Labbé the Venice Immersive Grand Prize.
In the Venice Classics section, best restored film went to Nanni Moretti for Ecco Bombo. Sarah Friedland won best debut film, the Lion of the Future prize, with Familiar Touch.
The world’s oldest film festival was at its best with features such as Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Pablo Larraín’s Maria, starring Angelina Jolie, getting their world premieres at the Sala Grande. Erotic thriller Babygirl, headlined by Nicole Kidman, Antonio Banderas and Harris Dickinson, all but confirmed this year’s Venice was embracing sex on screen.
George Clooney and Brad Pitt whipped fans into a frenzy with the premiere of Wolfs as Pedro Almodovar’s first-ever English-language film The Room Next Door impressed the fest with a whopping 17-minute standing ovation.
Luca Guadagnino and Daniel Craig teamed up to debut Queer, and Todd Phillips’ sequel Joker: Folie à Deux, with Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix, rounded out the heavy hitters Wednesday night. It’s safe to say Alberto Barbera, the long-running director of the Venice Film Festival, pulled off a top-shelf line-up for this year’s event (which ran Aug. 28-Sept. 7).
And there were some surprise show-stealers: Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, led by Adrian Brody, was widely considered the critics’ favorite of the entire fest, and I’m Still Here was Walter Salles’ first directorial feature since 2012.
On the documentary side, there was also Kevin Macdonald and Sam Rice-Edwards’ music doc One to One: John & Yoko, which focuses on John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s historic 1972 concerts at Madison Square Garden; 2073 from Amy and Senna filmmaker Asif Kapadia; Separated from The Fog of War director Errol Morris; and Andres Veiel’s Riefenstahl, a look at notorious German documentarian Leni Riefenstahl.
Justin Kurzel’s new feature, The Order, a thriller about a group of bank-robbing white supremacists in the Pacific Northwest, had Nicholas Hoult, Jude Law and Tye Sheridan on the Lido, too, finishing up with an applause that went on more than seven minutes.
Venice remained a propellant of excellent TV: highlights include Alfonso Cuarón’s psychological thriller Disclaimer, an AppleTV+ limited series starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline and Sacha Baron Cohen, which will bow worldwide on Oct. 11; and M – Son Of The Century from Darkest Hour director Joe Wright, an eight-part look at the rise of Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini, played by Italian star Luca Marinelli.
Below, The Hollywood Reporter is updating live the festival’s award winners for 2024.
Main Competition
Lion of the Future – Venice Award for a Debut Film
Familiar Touch
Sarah Friedland
Orizzonti Extra Audience Award – Armani Beauty
Shahed (The Witness)
Nader Saeivar
Venice Classics Best Documentary on Cinema
Chain Reactions
Alexandre O. Phillipe
Venice Classics Best Restored Film
Ecce Bombo
Nanni Moretti
Venice Immersive
Impulse: Playing with Reality
Barry Gene Murphy, May Abdalla
Venice Immersive Special Jury Prize
Oto’s Planet
Gwenael François
Venice Immersive Grand Prize
Ito Meikyū
Boris Labbé
Best Film
Grand Jury Prize
Best Director
Special Jury Prize
Best Screenplay
Best Actress
Best Actor
Best Young Actor
Orizzonti (Horizons)
Source: Hollywoodreporter
