The feature film 'Poor Things', by Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, won the Golden Lion for best film, the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, announced the jury of this 80th edition of the event, chaired by director Damien Chazelle.
Starring Emma Stone, with Carminho in the brief role of an anonymous fado singer, "Poor Things" takes place between the fantastic and the real, to demonstrate how social standards weigh on women.
The Silver Lion of the Grand Jury Prize, the second most important of the festival, went to "Evil Does Not Exist", a hymn to the protection of nature directed by the Japanese Ryusuke Hamaguchi, the same as "Drive my Car", nominated for the Oscars.
Italian Matteo Garrone won the Silver Lion for Best Director with "Io Capitano", a story about sub-Saharan immigration, which crosses the desert, the nightmare of Libya and the dangers of crossing the Mediterranean, starring Senegalese Seydou Sarr, who received the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Emerging Actor.
At the ceremony that closed the festival, Matteo Garrone gave the floor to Senegalese Mamadou Kouassi, whose testimony inspired the film, and dedicated the award "to all the people who did not ask to reach [the Italian island of] Lampedusa", calling for an end to the human trafficking and the establishment of safe corridors for asylum seekers.
Chilean Pablo Larraín received the award for best screenplay for "El Conde", a satire in which he portrays the dictator Augusto Pinochet as a bloodthirsty vampire, criticizing the impunity of the leaders of his country's dictatorship (1973-1990). A reality that was once again denounced at the closing ceremony of the festival, when 50 years have passed since the military coup that overthrew the government of Popular Unity, of Salvador Allende.
The Volpi Cup for best actor went to North American Peter Sarsgaard for his performance in "Memory", Mexican Michel Franco's second feature film in the United States, about the relationship between a woman tormented by childhood trauma, played by Jessica Chastain , with a man facing dementia praecox.
Upon receiving the award, Sarsgaard recalled the strike by North American actors and screenwriters, the reasons that led to the strike, and appealed to large studios and platforms not only for decent retribution for workers, but also for limiting the use of artificial intelligence .
"This work is based on human relationships (...) and the human experience cannot be handed over to machines", warned the actor. "If we lose this battle, our industry will be the first of many to fall", he reinforced.
The Volpi Cup for best actress went to Cailee Spaeny, for her performance in "Priscilla", Sofia Coppola's film about Priscilla Presley.
The festival awarded the Golden Career Lions to director Liliana Cavani and actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai.
Source: Lusa